The refectory was at the other end of the passageway. It was a large room, filled with orderly rows of tables. Men, women, and children sat at the tables, eating food from trays that were dispensed from a large and intricate machine on one side of the front of the room. I stared at it for a while, watching people go up to it, press colored panels, and receive their trays within fifteen or twenty seconds each.
“Catering,” said il-Qurawi with an audible sigh. “Major part of our overhead.”
“Question, O Sir,” I said. “Who’s actually paying for all this?”
He looked at me as if I were a total fool. “All these people in Group 26, of course. They’ve signed over varying amounts of cash and property, depending on how long they intend to stay. Some come for a week, but the greater portion of the group has paid in advance for ten-or twenty-year leases.”
My eyes narrowed as I thought and did a little multiplication in my head. “Then, depending on the populations of the other thirty-some floors,” I said slowly, “CRCorp ought to be making a very tidy bundle.”
His head jerked around to look at me directly. “I’ve already mentioned the high overhead. The expenses we incur to maintain all this — and the CRs on the other floors — is staggering. Our profits are not so great as you might think.”
“I ask a thousand pardons, O Sir,” I said. “I truly had no intention to give offense. I’m still trying to get an idea of how large an operation this is. Maybe now’s the time to speak to one or two of these ‘Martian colonists.’ “
He relaxed a little. He was hiding something, I’d bet my wives and kids on it. “Of course,” he said smoothly. I thought back on it and couldn’t recall a single time he’d actually called me by name. In any event, he directed me to one of the tables where there was an empty seat beside an elderly man with short-cropped white hair. He wore a pale-blue jumpsuit. Hell, everyone there wore a pale-blue jumpsuit. I wondered if that was the official uniform on the real Mars colony, or just a group decision of this particular CR.
“Salam alekom,” I said to the elderly man.
“Alekom-os-salam,” he said mechanically. “Outsider, huh?”
“Just came in to get a quick look.”
He leaned over and whispered in my ear. “Now, some of us really hate outsiders. Spoils the group consensus.”
“I’ll be out of here before you know it, inshallah.”
The white-haired man took a forkful of some brown, smooth substance on his tray, chewed it thoughtfully, then said, “Could’ve at least gotten into a goddamn jumpsuit, hayawaan. Too much trouble?”
I ignored the insult. Il-Qurawi should’ve thought of the jumpsuit. “How long you been part of Group 26?” I asked.
“We don’t call ourselves ‘Group 26,’” said the man, evidently disliking me even more. “We’re the Mars colony.”
Well, the real Mars colony was a combined project of the Federated New England States of America, the new Fifth Reich, and the Fragrant Heavenly Empire of True Cathay.
There were no — or very few — Arabs on the real Mars.
Someone delivered a tray of food to me: molded food without texture slapped onto a molded plastic tray; the brown stuff, some green stuff that I took to be some form of vegetable material — as nondescript and unidentifiable as anything else on the tray — a small portion of dark red, chewy stuff that might have been a meat substitute, and the almost obligatory serving of gelatin salad with chopped carrots, celery, and canned fruit in it. There were also slices of dark bread and disposable cups of camel’s milk.
I turned again to the white-haired gentleman. “Milk, huh?” I asked.
His bushy eyebrows went up. “Milk is the best thing for you. If you want to live forever.”
I murmured “Bismillah,” which means “in the name of God,” and I began eating my meal, not knowing what some of the dishes were even after I’d tasted and chewed and swallowed them. I ate out of social obligation, and I did pretty well, too. When some of the others were finished, they took their trays and utensils to a machine very much like the one that dispensed the meals in the first place. The hard items disappeared into a long, wide slot, and I felt certain that leftover food was recycled in one form or another. CRCorp prided itself on efficiency, and this was one way to keep the operating costs down.
I still had my doubts about the limited choices in the refectory — including the compulsory camel’s milk, which was served in four-ounce cups. As I ate, il-Qurawi turned toward me again. “Are you enjoying the meal?” he asked.
“Praise God for His beneficence,” I said.
“God, God — ,” il-Qurawi shook his head. “It’s permissible if you really believe in that sort of thing. But the people here are not all Muslim — some belong to no organized religion at all — and they’re using whatever agricultural training they had on ‘Earth,’ and they’re applying it here on ‘Mars.’ They grew a small portion of these delicious meats and vegetables themselves — it came from their skill, their dedication, their determination. They receive no aid or interference from CRCorp.”
“Yeah, you right,” I said, and decided I’d had enough of il-Qurawi, too. I hadn’t tasted anything the least bit palatable except possibly the bread and milk, and how wildly enthusiastic could I get about them? I didn’t mention anything about CRCorp’s inability to reproduce the noticeably lower gravity of the true Mars, or certain other aspects of the interplanetary milieu.
I spoke some more to the white-haired man, and then one of the plainly clothed women farther down the table leaned over and interrupted us. Her hair was cut just above shoulder-length, dull from not having been washed for a very long time. I suppose that while there was plenty of water in the thirty-six-story office building, in the headquarters of the CRCorp, and on some of the other consensus-reality floors, there was extremely little water available on floor twenty-six — the Mars for the sort of folks who yearned for danger, but no danger more threatening than the elevator ride from the main lobby.
“Has he told you everything?” asked the filthy woman. Her voice was clearly intended to be a whisper, but I’m sure she was overheard several rows of tables away on either side of us.
“There’s so much more I want you to see,” said il-Qurawi, even going so far as to grab my arm. That just made me determined to hear the woman out.
“I have not finished my meal, O fellah,” I said, somewhat irritably. I’d called him a peasant. I shouldn’t have, but it felt good. “What is your blessed name, O Lady?” I asked her.
She looked blank for a few seconds, then confused. Finally she said, “Marjory Mulcher. Yeah, that’s me now. Sometimes I’m Marjory Tiller, depending on the season and how badly they need me and how many people are willing to work with me.”
I nodded, figuring I understood what she meant. “Everything that passes in this world,” I said, “ — or any other world —” I interpolated, “is naught but the expression of the Will of God.”
Marjory’s eyes grew larger and she smiled. “I’m a Roman Catholic,” she said. “Lapsed, maybe, but what does that do to you, camel jockey?”
I couldn’t think of a safely irrelevant reply.
In her mind, the CRCorp probably had nothing to do with her present situation. Perhaps in her own mind she was on Mars. That may have been the great and ultimate victory of CRCorp.
“I asked you,” said Marjory with a frown, “are they showing you everything? Are they telling you everything?”
“Don’t know,” I said. “I just got here.”
Marjory moved down a few places and sat beside me, on the other side from the white-haired man. I looked around and saw that only she and I were still eating. Everyone else had disposed of his tray and was sitting, almost expectantly, in his molded plastic seat, politely and quietly.
The woman smelled terrible. She leaned toward me and whispered, “You know the corporation is just about ready to unleash a devastating CR. Something we won’t be able to manage at all. Death on every floor, I imagine. And then, when they’ve tested this horrible CR on us, may their religion be cursed, they’ll unleash it on you and what you casually prefer to call the rest of the world. Earth, I mean. I grew up on Earth, you know. Still have some relatives there.”
By the holy sacred beard of the Prophet, may the blessings of Allah be on him and peace, I’ve never felt so relieved as when she discovered a sudden interest in the gelatin salad. “Raisins. Rejoicing and celebrations,” she said to no one in particular. “Consensual raisins.”
