“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.
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.