longer to name the planet more cheerfully, and the same with their star, Wolf 359. However, the electronics had failed brutally, turning their generation ship into the sort of empty loft I’d witnessed in the CRCorp building. The crew had gotten disgusted and resigned, feeling cheated and threatening lawsuits.
After CRCorp instituted repairs, and when the science-fiction-oriented customers heard that floor three had returned to its generation-ship environment, many of the crew reenlisted at the agreed-upon huge rates. I got another visit, from Bin el-Fadawin this time.
“CRCorp and Shaykh il-Qurawi are more grateful than they can properly express,” he said, putting a moderately fat envelope on my desk. “Your work on this case has shown the corporation which techniques it needs to restore for each and every consensual reality.”
“Please convey my thanks to both the shaykh and the corporation. I’m just glad everything worked out well at the end,” I said. “If Allah wills, the residents of the CRCorp building will once again be happy with their shared worlds.” I knew I hadn’t done anything but check their security systems; but if they were happy, it had been worth investigating just for the fun I’d had.
Bin el-Fadawin touched his heart, his lips, and his forehead. “Inshallah. You have earned the acknowledged gratitude of CRCorp,” he said, bowing low. “This is a mighty though intangible thing to have to your credit.”
“I’ll mark that down in my book,” I said, through a thin smile. I’d had enough of il-Qurawi’s lackey. The money in the envelope looked to be adequate reward and certainly spendable. The gratitude of CRCorp, though, was something as invisible and nonexistent as a dream djinn. I paid it the same attention — which is to say, none.
“Thank you again, O Wise One, and I speak as a representative of both CRCorp and Shaykh il-Qurawi.”
“No thanks are necessary,” I said. “He asked of me a favor, and I did my best to fulfill it.”
“May Allah shower you with blessings,” he said, sidling toward the inner door.
“May God grant your wishes, my brother,” I said, watching him sidle and doing nothing to stop him. I heard the outer door open and shut, and I was sure that I was alone. I picked up the envelope, opened it, and counted the take. There were three thousand kiam there, which included a sizable bonus. I felt extravagantly well paid-off, but not the least bit satisfied. I had this feeling, you see, one I’d had before….
It was a familiar feeling that everything wasn’t as picture-perfect as il-Qurawi’s hopfrog had led me to suppose. The feeling was borne out quite some time later, when I’d almost forgotten it. My typically long, slow afternoon was interrupted by, of all people, the white-haired old gentleman from floor twenty-six. His name was Uzair ibn Yaqoub. He seemed extremely nervous, even in my office, which had been rendered shabby and comfortable again. He sat in the red-leather chair opposite me and fidgeted for a little while. I gave him a few minutes.
“It’s the Terran oxygen level and the air pressure,” he said in explanation.
I nodded. It sure as hell was something, to get him to leave his “Martian colony,” even for an hour or two.
“Take your time, O Shaykh ibn Yaqoub,” I said. I offered him water and some fruit, that’s all I had around the office. That and the bottle in the drawer, which had less than a slug left in it.
“You know, of course,” said ibn Yaqoub, “that after your visit, the same trouble that had plagued other consensual realities struck us. Fortunately for floor twenty-six, the CRCorp technicians found out what was wrong on Mars, and they fixed it. We’re all back there living just as before.”
I nodded. That was chiefly my job at this stage of the interview.
“Well,” said ibn Yaqoub, “I’m certain — and some of the others, even those who never agreed with me before — that something wrong and devious and possibly criminal is happening.”
I thought, what could be more criminal than the destruction — the theft — of consensual realities? But I merely said, “What do you mean, O Wise One?”
“I mean that somehow, someone is stealing from us.”
“Stealing what?” I asked, remembering that they produced little: some vegetables, maybe, some authentic lichen….
“Stealing,” insisted ibn Yaqoub. “You know the Mars colony pays each of us flight pay and hazardous-duty pay during our stay.”
No, I hadn’t heard that before. All I’d known was that the money went the other way, from the colonist to the corporation. This was suddenly becoming very interesting.
“And that’s in addition to our regular low wages,” said the white-haired old man. “We didn’t sign up to make money. It was the Martian experience we longed for.”
I nodded a third time. “And you think, O Shaykh, that somehow you’re being cheated?”
He made a fist and struck my desk. “I know it!” he cried. “I figured in advance how much money to expect for a four-week period, because I had to send some to my grandchildren. When the pay voucher arrived, it was barely more than half the kiam I expected. I tried to have someone in the colony explain it to me — I admit that I’m not as good with mathematics as I used to be — and even Bin el-Fadawin assured me that I must have made an error in calculation. I don’t particularly trust Bin el-Fadawin, but everyone else seemed to agree with him. Then, as time passed, more and more people noticed tax rates too high, payroll deductions too large, miscellaneous costs showing up here and there. Now we’re all generally agreed that something needs to be done. You’ve helped us greatly before. We beg you to help us again.”
I stood up behind my desk and paced, as I usually did when I was thinking over a new case. Was this a new case, however, or just an extension of the old one? It was difficult for me to believe il-Qurawi and CRCorp needed every last fiq and kiam of these poor people, who were already paying the majority of their wealth for the privilege of living in the “Mars colony.” Cheating them like this seemed to me to be too trivial and too cruel, even for CRCorp.
I told ibn Yaqoub I’d look into the matter. I accepted no retainer, and I quoted him a vanishingly small fee. I liked him, and I liked most of the others in Group 26.
I returned first to the twenty-sixth floor, not telling anyone I was coming — particularly not il-Qurawi or Bin el-Fadawin. I knew where to get a mask, oxygen tank, and blue coveralls. Now I also knew where the control box was hidden on the “Martian” wall, and I checked it. I made several interesting discoveries: Someone was indeed bleeding off funds from the internal operation of the consensus reality.
I returned to my office, desperate to know who the culprit was. I was not terribly surprised to see my outer office filled with three waiting clients — all of them from other consensus realities. One, from the harsh Sunni floor, threatened to start taking off hands and arms if I didn’t come up with an acceptable alternative. The other two were nowhere as bloodthirsty, but every bit as outraged.
I assured and mollified and talked them back down to something like peacefulness. I waited until they left, and I opened the bottom drawer and withdrew the office bottle. I felt I’d earned the final slug. A voice behind me spoke: “Got a gift for ya,” the young man said. I turned. I saw a youth in his mid-twenties, wearing a gallebeya that seemed to shift colors from green to blue as he changed positions.
“For you,” he said, coming toward me, setting a fresh bottle of gin on my desk. “On account of you’re so damn smart.”
“Bismillah,” I said. “I am in your debt.”
“We’ll see,” said the young man, with a quirky smile.
I built us two quick white deaths. He sat in the red-leather chair and sipped his, enjoying the taste. I gulped the first half of mine, then slowed to his speed just to show that I could do it.
I waited. I could gain much by waiting — information perhaps, and at least the other half of the white death.
“You don’t know me,” said the young man. “Call me Firon.” That was Arabic for Pharaoh. “It’s as phony a name as Musa. Or your own name.”
The mention of Musa made me sit up straight. I was sore that he’d broken his way into my inner office, eavesdropped on my clients, and knew that I was out of gin on top of everything else. I started to say something, but he stopped me with a raised hand. “There’s a lot you don’t know, O Sir,” he said, rather sadly I thought. “You used to run the streets the way we run them, but it’s been too long, and you rose too high, and now you’re trapped over here on this side of the canal. So you’ve lost touch in some ways.”
“Lost touch, yes, but I still have connections — “
Firon laughed. “Connections! Musa and I and our friends now decide who gets what and how much and when. And then we slip back into our carefully built alternate personalities. Some of us make use of your antique
