Il-Qurawi frowned at the discussion of money and waved his hand. “Will you accept a check?” he asked.
“No,” I said. I’d noticed that the man was stingy with honorifics, so I’d decided to hold my own to the minimum.
He grunted. He was clearly annoyed and doubtful about my ability to do what he wanted. Still, he removed a moderate stack of bills from a black leather wallet, and sliced off five for me. He leaned forward and put the money on my desk. I pretended to ignore it.
I made no pretense of checking an appointment book. “I’m certain, O Shaykh, that I can spare a few hours for you.”
“Very good.” Il-Qurawi stood up and spent a few moments vitally absorbed in the wrinkles in his business suit. I took the time to slide the five hundred kiam into the pocket of my gallebeya.
“I can spare a few hours, O Shaykh,” I said, “but first I’d like some more information. Such as who you are and whom you represent.”
He didn’t say a word. He merely slid a business card to the spot where the money had been.
I picked up the card. It said:
Ishaq ibn Muhammad il-Qurawi
Chief of Security
CRCorp
Below that was a street address that meant nothing to me, and a commcode. I didn’t have a business card to give him, but I didn’t think he cared. “CRCorp?” I asked.
He was still standing. He indicated that we should begin moving toward the door. It was fine by me. “Yes, we deal in consensual realities.”
“Uh huh,” I said. “I know you people.” By this time, we were standing in the hallway and he was watching me lock the outer door.
We went downstairs to his car. He owned a long, black, chauffeur-driven, restored, gasoline-powered limousine. I wasn’t impressed. I’d ridden in a few of those. We got in and he murmured something to the driver. The car began gliding through the rubble-strewn streets, toward the headquarters of CRCorp.
“Can you be more exact about the nature of this vandalism, O Sir?” I said.
“You’ll see. I believe it’s being caused by one person. I have no idea why; I just want it stopped. There are too many clients in the building beginning to complain.”
And it’s beyond the capabilities of the Chief of Security, I thought. That spoke something ominous to me.
After about half an hour of weaving north and east, then back west toward the canal, then farther north, we arrived at the CRCorp building. Allah only knew what it had been before this entire part of the city had been destroyed, but now it stood looking newly built among its broken and blasted neighbors. One fixed-up building in all that desolation seemed pretty lonely and conspicuous, I thought, but I guess you had to start someplace.
Il-Qurawi and I got out of the limousine and walked across the freshly surfaced parking area. There were no other cars in it. “The executive offices are on the seventeenth floor, about halfway up, but there’s nothing interesting to see there. You’ll want to visit one or two of the consensual realities, and then look at the vandalism I mentioned.”
Well, sure, as soon as he said there wasn’t anything interesting on the seventeenth floor, I immediately wanted to go there. I hate it when other people tell me what I want to do, but it was il-Qurawi’s five hundred kiam, so I kept my mouth shut, nodded, and followed him inside to the elevators.
“Give you a taste of one of the consensual realities,” he said. “We just call them CRs around here. We’ll stop off first on twenty-six. It’s functioning just fine, and there’s been no sign of vandalism as yet.”
Still nothing for me to say. We rode up quickly, silently in the mirrored elevator. I glanced at my reflection. I wasn’t happy with the appearance I’d had to adopt, but I was stuck with it.
We got off at twenty-six. The elevator doors opened, we stepped out, and passed through a small, well- constructed airlock. When I turned to look, the elevator and airlock had disappeared. I mean, there was no sign that elevator doors could possibly exist for hundreds of miles. I felt for them and there was nothing but air. Rather thin, cold air. If I’d been pressed to make a guess, I’d have said that we were on the surface of Mars. I knew that was impossible, but I’d seen holo shots of the Martian surface, and this is just what they looked like.
“Here,” said il-Qurawi, handing me a mask and a small tank, “this should help you somewhat.”
“I am in your debt, O Great One.” I used the tight-grip straps to hold the mask in place, but the tank was made to be worn on a belt. I had a rope holding my gallebeya closed, but it wouldn’t support the weight of the tank, so I just carried it in my hands. We started walking across the barren, boulder-studded surface of Mars toward a collection of buildings in the far distance that I recognized as the international Martian colony.
“The atmosphere on this floor only approximates that of Mars,” said il-Qurawi. “That was part of the group’s consensus agreement. Still, if you’re outside and not wearing the mask, you’re liable to develop a rather serious condition they call ‘Mars throat.’ Affects your sinuses, your inner ears, your throat, and so forth.”
“Let me see if I can guess, O Sir,” I said, huffing a little as I made my way over the extremely rough terrain. “Group of people in the colony, all would-be Martian colonists, and they’ve voted on how they wanted the place to look.” I gazed up at a pink peach-colored sky.
“Exactly. And they voted on how they wanted it to feel and smell and sound. Actually, it approximates the reports we get from the true Mars Project rather closely. CRCorp supplies the area, for which we charge what we feel is a fair price. We also supply the software that maintains the illusion, too.”
I kicked a boulder. No illusion. “How much of this is real?” I said. Even using the tank, I was already short of breath and eager to get inside one of the buildings.
“The boulders, as you’ve just discovered, are artificial but real. The buildings are real. The carefully maintained atmosphere is also our responsibility. Everything else you might experience is computer or holo generated. It can be quite deadly out here, but that’s the way this group wanted it. We haven’t left anything out, down to the toxin-laden lichen, which is part of the illusion. For all intents and purposes, this is the surface of Mars. Group 26 has always seemed to be very pleased with it. We’ve gotten very few complaints or suggestions for improvement.”
“Naturally, O Sir,” I said, “I’m looking forward to interviewing a few of the residents.”
“Of course,” said il-Qurawi. “That’s why I brought you here. We’re very proud of Group 26, and justly so, I think.”
“Praise Allah,” I said. No echo from my client.
After more time and hiking than I’d been prepared for, we arrived at the colony itself. I felt like a physical wreck; the executive with me was not suffering at all. He looked like he’d just taken a leisurely stroll through the repro of the Tiger Gardens in the city’s entertainment quarter.
“This way,” he said, pointing to an airlock into the long main building. It appeared to have been constructed of some material derived from the reddish sand all around, but I wasn’t interested enough to find out for sure if that were true or part of the holographic illusion.
We cycled through the airlock. Inside, we found ourselves in a corridor that had been painted in institutional colors: dark green to waist-level, a kind of maddening tan above that. I was absolutely sure that I would quickly come to hate those colors; soon it proved that they dominated the color scheme of most of the hallways and meeting rooms. The people of Group 26 must have had a very different aesthetic sense than I did. It didn’t give me great hopes for them.
Il-Qurawi glanced at his wristwatch, a European product like the rest of his outfit. It was thin and sleek and made of gold. “The majority of them will be in the refectory module now,” he said. “Good. You’ll have the opportunity to meet as many of Group 26 as you like. Ask whatever you like, but we are under a little time pressure. I’d like to take you to floor seven within the next half hour.”
“I give thanks to the Maker of Worlds,” I said. Il-Qurawi gave me a sidelong glance to see if I were serious. I was doing my best to give that impression.
The refectory was down the entire length of the main building and through a low, narrow, windowless passageway. I felt a touch of claustrophobia, as if I were down deep beneath the surface; I had to remind myself that I was actually on the twenty-sixth floor of an office tower.
