Overhead, light-signs indicated the rows, and at Ariel’s nudge Derec started the long trudge to row J.
Because of his Spacer conditioning, he had been thinking of this kitchen as a Spacer restaurant, with maybe a dozen tables, most for four people, some for two, a few for eight or ten. But these tables each seated-he guessed fifty on each side. Even after they reached row J, table 9 was a long way away.
Hesitantly, they approached it-at least it was plainly marked-and found two seats together. The people they passed were grumbling because choice was suspended. “Too many transients,” growled someone, and they felt guilty.
“Food is probably one of the few high spots of their days,” Ariel whispered.
They took their seats and looked at the raised section of the table before them.
NO FREE CHOICE glowed to the right. On the left was a panel that said: Chicken-Sundays, opt. Mon. Fish-Fridays. opt. Sat. On Earth, there was a seven-day week, but Derec had no idea which day was which. There being no choice, he shrugged, glanced at Ariel, and pressed the contact. The panel immediately lit with: Zymosteak: Rare, Med… Well-D? Not Sunday or Friday, he thought. Derec chose well-done and the sign vanished, replaced with Salad: Tonantzin, Calais, Del Fuego, PepperTom?
Ariel shrugged, glancing at him, and they chose, suppressing smiles; neither had heard of any of these dressings.
ORDER PLACED. That sign stared at them for several minutes. The Earthmen around them were a scruffy lot, and Derec realized that he had been subliminally aware of that for some time. Earthers were short, and tended to be plain, if not actually homely. Here and there a handsome man or a beautiful woman attracted admiring glances, but they were a minority.
At least Earth people weren’t starving, as Derec had expected. He knew vaguely that it took a major effort on the part of the population and its robots-restricted to the countryside-to feed Earth. Standard food synthesizers were too expensive, and used much too much energy for Earth to afford. But a large minority of these people were fat, and many more were plump.
At this table they waited patiently, not talking or laughing as at other tables.
“Probably a table for Transients who don’t know each other,” Ariel said, low-toned. There were only a couple of quiet conversations at the table.
Presently, the food ended their embarrassment; a disk slid aside in front of each of them and another rose into position, the second one holding a covered server of plastic. When they removed the servers from the service disks, the latter closed smoothly.
The food looked like steak, baked potato with shrimp sauce, and a salad with dressing on the side. Crusty, faintly yellow bread. It smelled marvelous and, to Derec’s amazement, it was natural. His first bite confirmed that: the rich, subtle, varied flavor of real food was unmistakable. And yet it wasn’t real food, either. Zymosteak? It was plain these people normally got meat only twice a week, with a chance at it on two more days. Four days out of seven.
“I can’t believe it’s so good,” Ariel said under the cover of the clatter of Earthers opening their servers.
Derec hadn’t realized he was so hungry; it hadn’t been that long since breakfast. Perhaps he’d gotten so bored with synthetic food that he’d been eating less and less.
He turned his attention to another problem. They had been served with amazing rapidity. He couldn’t remember service on any Spacer world, but he was sure it wasn’t this fast. There had to be automation behind the scenes. Of course, with no free choice, they had merely to drop the chosen kind of dressing into the server, clamp the lid down, and pop it into an oven for the few seconds required to cook the zymosteak to the desired degree. Probably ran it through the oven on a belt. With a good oven, there could have been ice cream on the same plate and it wouldn’t have melted before the meat was done.
Even so, row J was the last: ten rows of ten tables each; a hundred tables, each seating a hundred. This commissary was equipped to feed ten thousand people. Derec mentioned as much to Ariel, who was as dumbfounded as he. Itwasn’t at capacity now; perhaps there were only six thousand people in the room.
On Aurora, a sports arena that seated ten thousand was a big one.
Halfway through the meal, Derec found his breath coming fast: it was too much. He felt trapped in this concrete cavern, felt that the spacious room was closing in, the ceiling, not low but not high, was the lid of a trap, the mobs of unconscious people around him weren’t real. They probably went all their lives without seeing the sun or open air, he thought, and that made it worse. With difficulty, he fought off the panic, panting.
When they had finished their meals, they put the servers and flatware back on the disk and pressed the same contact again, as they’d seen their neighbors do, and watched them vanish. The exit was on the opposite side. Once outside (an elaborate turnstile permitted exit only), Derec breathed more freely. They were a little at a loss, this not being the way they’d come in, but the sound of the ways was obvious, and they soon found their way back to them.
“The trouble is, there’s no quiet, no private place to talk,” Ariel complained as they hesitated.
“I know. We want to go to the spaceport, but I don’t feel like unfolding the map here.”
“Look…” Ariel fell silent until a chattering cluster of pre-teenage girls had passed, not even noticing them. “Look, the signs indicate that it isn’t ‘rush hour’-whatever that is-R. David mentioned it.”
“Right, and lowly Fours like ourselves can ride the express platforms for many hours yet.”
They made their way up the strips of the local, down again to the motionless strip between the locals and the express, then up again, faster and faster. Derec realized uneasily that if they were to trip and fall at these speeds they might be seriously injured. Nor was there an attentive robot to rush forward and grasp their arms if they should fall. Earthers never fell, he supposed. They learned when very young.
On up they went, till the wind whipped their hair and stung their eyes, up and up to the top, where each platform had a windbreak at the front of it. There they found an empty one behind a platform occupied by a man with the Mad Hatter’s huge hat and sat, breathing heavily. Ariel grinned at him and Derec laughed back.
Carefully, in the shelter of the windbreak, they unfolded the map and studied it. They knew that they were in Webster Groves Section, proceeding east, and quickly found the spot, just as they passed under the sign that said SHREWSBURY SECTION. But study the map how they would, they saw no sign of any spaceport.
Derec looked blankly at Ariel. “It’s got to be here somewhere!”
A group of teenagers, mostly male, passed by two platforms away, one fleeing, the others pursuing, expertly negotiating the strips. A whistle shrilled, over the shrilling of the wind, and a blue-uniformed man waved his club and set off in pursuit of the children, who scattered down the strips. Adults scowled at them.
They studied it all over again, until the signs overhead said TOWER GROVE SECTOR.
“Possibly it isn’t on the map,” Ariel said. “Earthers are prejudiced against Spacers. They might not like to advertise the port.”