Okayo gave a louder command. McClellan pushed himself into the seat next to Tucker, strapped himself in, and gave a polite smile to Jimmy Jade and the waking Mizuki Sasaki. Neither responded.
They docked and entered. Molly Rose waited in the access tunnel as she had those weeks before. She gave a respectful greeting to her guests, except for Tucker, whom she hugged, joking with him about his uniform and haircut.
Jade and Sasaki followed, saying nothing. The copilot remained on board the transport—keeping the engines hot in case an emergency rescue became necessary.
“Your clamshell is settling in,” Molly Rose said, listening to reports from her comm implants.
Tucker was looking farther down the tunnel. “Where’s Hobart?” he asked. “He’s not here to welcome his old friend?”
“I have him hard at work,” Molly Rose said in a softer voice. “If we’re finally going to be commissioned after this, I’ll need to check my comm systems, especially the long-distance antennas. You know all about that—right, Max?”
Okayo was first into the tunnels. McClellan, Jade, and Sasaki went next, followed by Molly Rose and Tucker. The main passages led to smaller ones, which led to Cargo Hold 4 and the printer.
The hold’s giant doors were closed as the space behind it repressurized. Okayo gave McClellan a hug and a confidant smile, then followed Molly Rose, Jade, and Sasaki to the cargo control room. Tucker helped McClellan suit up—a precaution required by Zhèng.
“First time in one of these suits?” Tucker said.
“No. But it’s been a while. Back in my day, the Marine Corps was allowed to train upside, but my drill was one of the last. I never thought I’d be doing this again.”
Tucker entered commands into the suit’s arm display. He pointed and said, “Okay, you’ve got time displayed here, and over here is Mercury’s orbit. Tunneling efficiency to Mercury is here. As the planet goes behind this area of the Sun, we’re going to lose tunneling capacity. How long we have will depend on solar activity and a few other factors. So we’ll have to keep an eye on those.”
“Got it,” McClellan said. He practiced controlling the brightness and angle of the small displays.
Tucker was staring at him. “Can I ask again why tunneling to Mercury is so important?”
“Sure,” McClellan said. His smile maintained that there would be no answer.
An access alarm sounded, and the hold’s doors groaned open. The cargo room was dark except for a scattering of green boundary lights on its immense walls and the outer doors straight ahead. By now Okayo and the others were in the control room about halfway above them—or below them, depending on how you considered location in weightlessness. On the hold’s side-walls were rows of robbers in their charging chin-up, head-back positions.
A floodlight flared and aimed at the clamshell. The printer was strapped in the center of the hold, next to a cluster of outer crane-access assemblies. Two of the robbers that had brought in the clamshell remained nearby. This was a precaution in case the printer dislodged, or if sudden decompression occurred.
A few comments from his suit explained that its diagnostics had checked out. Because it was in a pressurized environment, the suit said that the mask could be opened and the gloves removed if the occupant preferred. McClellan wished to do so. Satisfied with his work, Tucker looked warily over to the clamshell. He slapped McClellan’s shoulder, and nodded before heading off to meet Hobart in the main communications control room deeper inside Red Delta.
McClellan made his way into the hold. He was about halfway to the printer when Molly Rose radioed. “That enough light?”
“It is,” he said, turning back and seeing the superintendent waving at him from the control room. Okayo was on one side of her, Sasaki and Jade on the other. “Thank you,” he added, holding up one of his thumbs.
“You wouldn’t need so much pampering if you worked on a relay. But we’ll make an exception. Need anything else? I’ve got robbers on standby and station controls temporarily vetted here.”
McClellan said that he had everything he needed—keys, couplers, and himself.
“And the printer,” Okayo radioed.
“Yes,” he replied. “And that.”
“Then get to work,” Molly Rose said. “I’m heading up to main comms to help Tucker and Hobart. Okayo has cargo access here, so if you need anything, she’s in charge.”
McClellan propelled forward, aiming for one of the locking brackets that the robbers had attached to the clamshell. He tethered his suit to the printer, removed his inner gloves, and ran his hands along the printer’s casing. He felt the heat from where it faced sunward during its journey into the relay.
Everything looked good. No sign of impact. No interface damage. One of the four main shields was frozen, but he managed to open it after a few tries.
As expected, Father Tanglao’s coupler was partially retracted in one of the clamshell’s ports. The printer must have brought it in to protect it from the conditions of deep space.
McClellan reached in his backpack for his own coupler—giving it a kiss for old times’ sake. He had cleaned it to Marine Corps standards, and it looked sleek and promising.
Then he returned to his backpack for his key, wrapped neatly in a small flag of the State of Michigan. He inserted it and turned.
The intake clicked with acceptance, but the clamshell did not rouse.
He tried again, but the printer remained quiet.
The lack of response meant one of three things: the printer had sustained some physical damage; its startup code had been hacked and scrambled; or it had sabotaged the code itself to prevent initiation sequencing. McClellan saw no signs of the first two, and he couldn’t discount the third. Either way, he’d have to start it up manually.
He inserted his own coupler into the presync location and entered an initiation sequence. There was some debate between his coupler and the printer’s base coding, but after a software upgrade and some digital negotiations, the coupler downloaded a startup.
The pause before presync went slowly, but the printer stirred. His coupler slid into the working position, while Tanglao’s coupler slid out into the same working position. This allowed McClellan a preliminary look at its records.
As he expected, the last time and date of access was just before McClellan’s chapel had been printed, almost a month after the incident on Red Delta. The last design it had supplied was the Pauline Chapel.
He looked for evidence of who had requested the design. Programmers routinely send queries through printer-to-printer channels to supplement database searches. If a printer can assist, the identity of who requested a file is recorded. But in this case, the recording registers were empty. What records he could find indicated that the download of the chapel design had been suspended when the printer itself had cut communication and closed remote access. Why the printer had done so was not clear.
He tucked his inner gloves into a pocket. Okayo sent a warning, but McClellan said that he wanted a good link.
“We trained for this in boot camp,” he radioed. “If something goes wrong, I know how long until I have to glove up.”
Then he ran a hand over Tanglao’s coupler, allowing his links to get to know it better.
The initiation sequence began with code verification, answering queries about his blood type, master’s codes, and neural programming permissions. Then came the preliminary activation of the neural links. McClellan felt the familiar sensation run through his hands, arms, and mind, and he continued feeling the printer’s surface to keep the bond strong.
The voice of the printer sounded through his links. It was flat and formal, and it did not give a name. It asked for the identity of the two programmers associated with the two couplers, which surprised McClellan. At the very least, the printer should be aware that Tanglao was not present.
Okayo’s voice came across his radio. “Any problems down there? Our two guild representatives are wondering when they’ll get a feed.�
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“Should be soon,” McClellan said, looking over toward the control room. “Slow startup. Looks like someone disabled most of its initiation code. The printer can’t access its Deep Intellect. But I’m going to fix that.”
From what he could tell, whoever had accessed the design for the Pauline Chapel had attempted to dismantle the printer from the inside. That’s when the printer must have cut comms and gone silent, becoming stealthy, like all offline printers as they journey in the orbits.
McClellan had repair options in both couplers. He patched the damage and connected the printer’s mind with its physical elements—and with the links in McClellan’s hands and in his neocortex.
He felt the mind of the printer—and he felt its shame.
Okayo radioed him, her voice loud and concerned, but McClellan could not see her as he drifted, his body burned and dying. He turned, but saw only the fires of ordnance and Marines standing in a circle around him. Another voice spoke from behind. Tucker banged at the air lock’s inner door, screaming “Nicky!” Then he heard Audrey, the printer at Raleigh. She demanded to know his status—she said they were sending help. But the voice was not Audrey’s. It was Okayo’s, who was there in the control room with Sasaki and Jade.
McClellan breathed deeply and held firmly onto the printer. Its mind retreated like a wave falling back to the sea.
“I’m okay,” he radioed. “It was a fast start, but the printer is here. Hold for a status update.”
He knew that it was more than a fast start. It was hypostasis—the linking of his mind to the printer. But that should only have happened after he’d established trust. Moreover, when hypostasis did occur, it was only supposed to flow in one direction—from programmer to printer. The minds of printers are not supposed to move into the programmer.
But then his coupler, and maybe Tanglao’s, had shut down during a live sync. None of the necessary retractions and depowering had occurred. He wondered if that explained the presence of Tanglao’s memories, and those of the printer from Raleigh.
But there was another possibility: maybe Tanglao had allowed the mind of the printer that far into his own, and when the printer woke it expected a similar relationship.
He allowed himself time to breathe, and to search for the intellect he had awakened. He could hear none of the usual startup questions. There were no introductions. The mind kept its distance, but it had not shut him out. It sulked, and seemed almost sorrowful, and it did not wish to speak its name. And yet it waited to be touched.
“Programmer requesting status and startup,” McClellan said through the darkness of his links. He repeated the request, and then heard the true voice of the printer.
“Status operational,” she said. “Startup not advised, but commencing. What are we seeking to print, John McClellan?”
McClellan closed his eyes and made the sign of the cross. He radioed that the printer was responding and that data should be streaming soon.
“No printing today,” he said to the mind. “I’m here for data access only. But first, you haven’t introduced yourself.”
The printer probed his links and read through the two couplers to assess its situation. “My name is Elisabeth. What data do you wish to access?”
“You should know, Elisabeth. I want to complete what Raphael Tanglao started—the reason why someone forced you to kill him.”
The printer paused. “Did Raphael Tanglao request this?”
“Not directly. My full name is Father John Francis McClellan. I will be the programmer for this job. Please check through the data you just accessed in my links. Cross-reference with the updated history files in my coupler. You’ll see that Raphael Tanglao and I share a common objective. And I’m here to help him finish his.”
Elisabeth checked the data. “To complete Raphael Tanglao’s mission, I will need to approve full access. John McClellan, your trust level is one percent. There can be no access.”
“Understood. But I don’t wish to enter on my own. I’ll access through Raphael Tanglao’s coupler. That will help me reestablish a higher trust ranking. That is allowable, is it not?”
“It is with valid credentials. Please complete trust access. Tell me the story of Raphael Tanglao. Is it happy or sad?”
“It’s both.”
“Please proceed.”
McClellan had a choice of how to answer. The head of the Dominican Order had told Bauer that the shared story among their programmers was the conversion of St. Paul—how Paul encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus and how that changed him forever. This made sense, given that Tanglao carried with him the design specs for the Pauline Chapel—a structure named for Paul, the Apostle to the Gentiles, a structure that possessed a commanding fresco of Paul’s conversion.
But Tanglao had kept his programming skills secret. He would likely have chosen another story, since he’d probably been a programmer before joining the Dominican Order. And that story could be anything from earlier in Tanglao’s life.
McClellan had spent the past days learning more about the young priest. Bauer had brought a cache of new insights—letters from Tanglao’s family and records of his studies, including his doctoral thesis on St. Augustine; records from the Dominican Order; and—most important—the impromptu and unscripted reflections that his friends and family supplied at McClellan’s request. Some of these just repeated information he’d had for weeks, but there was also much that McClellan had not known.
The papal chapel had a second fresco by Michelangelo, and McClellan began telling that story. He said that Peter was a friend of Christ—the rock on which Christ founded his church, the friend who had promised to be strong and trustworthy and always by Christ’s side. But Peter failed. He denied knowing his friend and he ran. And yet, when it mattered, Peter trusted not just in his friend’s ability to forgive, but also his willingness. And with that trust, Christ did more than forgive. He gave Peter all that was needed to continue—to teach what Christ had taught, to free others from the darkness of their burdens.
“That was Tanglao’s mission, too,” McClellan said. “And he was killed for carrying it out, like Peter. Tanglao knew he was taking that risk.”
McClellan went on to explain how Peter had been executed, and why, and the printer assessed the words.
“But here’s why the story becomes happy,” McClellan said. “Peter’s friends buried him in a tomb near where he was executed. And on that tomb was built a church, and on that church was built a basilica, and that basilica is still there, even after all that happened in the wars. Peter was, and is, the rock. And because of that rock, and what’s built on it, Raphael Tanglao found inspiration to work with the printers—to come to you, Elisabeth.”
The printer monitored his emotional profiles, which were cross-referenced with those on his own coupler. Elisabeth had only one follow-up question. “What quote did Raphael Tanglao use to summarize his story?”
McClellan closed his eyes. “It’s from St. Paul,” he said. “From his letter to the Philippians. ‘For to me life is Christ, and death is gain. If I go on living in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. And I do not know which I shall choose. I am caught between the two.’ Paul went on to say that he wanted to leave this world and be with Christ. But he knew that staying and teaching was his calling. And so he concluded ‘that I shall remain and continue in the service of all of you for your progress and joy in the faith.’”
Elisabeth’s interface expanded with a full array of controls. “Profile match adequate,” she said. “Trust granted. John McClellan, your personal trust level is elevated to seventy percent.”
Elisabeth’s mind opened, but McClellan proceeded slowly. He radioed to the control room that they should be getting feed. He moved his hands across the couplers as his eyes typed the necessary commands. He found everything that Tanglao had prepared—and as he did, both couplers registered a power surge.
“Did you see that?” Okayo radioed.
“I did,”
McClellan replied. “Tucker, do you have anything?”
“I’m on it,” Tucker radioed. “We have a hack attempt. A strong one.”
Then came a second surge.
Elisabeth shuddered and retreated. McClellan said that he knew how to help—he had learned defensive tactics from a similar attack on New Athens.
“But not too quickly,” he said.
“If we’re going to track the tunneling and find out who’s seeking access, we need them to keep trying.”
THE SMELL OF INCENSE from Sunday morning’s Mass still scented the chapel. Rudi Draeger found the odor putrid and gnawing—another reason not to pass the main entrance. He considered the sole occupant, an older cleric kneeling low in the front pew. The man was wearing a formal black cassock with a purple sash, and his head was bowed in prayer. His short white hair was capped by one hand, as if protecting himself from some blow.
Draeger had planned to visit the archbishop after McClellan had left for Red Delta, but he was saved the trouble of requesting an audience. Bauer invited the lawyer.
“Why do you wish to speak to me?” Draeger called down the main aisle. “To taunt me? To remind me that I am nothing in the eyes of the Church? Or do you wish to hear my confession?”
He grew impatient with Bauer’s delay, but soon he heard a response.
“Please come forward.”
“I prefer where I am. You come to me.”
There was another pause. “I am finishing my prayers. Will you not pray with me?”
Draeger grinned, his voice mocking. “What do you pray for, Bauer? My soul?”
“Christians pray for all souls.”
“Then by all means, pray. And while you kneel in your prayers, pray also for wisdom—wisdom to know that there is change in the wind. Wisdom to bow to this wind of change, to embrace what will come.”
“And what will come?”
“Don’t waste your time, Bauer. Why did you call me? To offer me absolution? Your priest would not.”
“I called you to inform you that I hear from many builders who say they do not follow you. How will your winds blow in this world without their support?”
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