Budayeen Nights: Stories

The World as We Know It

THE SETUP COULD HAVE BEEN PRETTY CLEVER with a little more thought, I have to admit. Using some of the newest-generation cerebral hardware, an ambitious but dangerously young man, a recent parolee — you know, a low-level street punk, much as I’d been once upon a time — had stolen a small crate from Mahmoud’s warehouse. The punk hadn’t even known what was in the crate. It turned out, if I can trust Mahmoud, that the crate contained a shipment of recently developed biological agents.

These bios had two major uses: They could promote the healing of traumatic wounds while making the attendant pain disappear for a while, without subjecting the patient to the well-documented narcotic disadvantages we’ve all come to know and love; or what was contained in the many disposable vials could easily be reconfigured to wipe out entire cities, using very small doses — thus becoming the most powerful neurological weapons ever devised. The small crate was labeled to be shipped to Holland, where the Dutch revolution was still at its full, vicious, inhuman peak.

Of course, Mahmoud was frantic to get his crate back. He and a few of my old friends, from the good old days when I had power and could move through the city without fear of being dusted by my many enemies, knew where I was now living. I’d left the Budayeen and adopted a new identity. Mahmoud had come to me and offered me money, which I didn’t need — I’d lost just about everything, but I’d carefully protected the cash I’d acquired — or contacts and agents, which I did need, and desperately. I agreed to look into the matter for Mahmoud.

It wasn’t very difficult. The thief was such a beginner that I almost felt like taking him aside and giving him a few pointers. I restrained that impulse, however.

The kid, who told me his name was Musa, had left a trail through the city that had been easy as hell for a predator like me to follow. I know the kid’s name wasn’t Musa, just as he knew my name wasn’t the one I gave him when I finally caught up to him. Names and histories were not important information to either of us at the time. All that mattered was the small crate.

I dragged him back to my office, far from the Budayeen, in a neighborhood called Iffatiyya. This part of the city, east beyond the canal, had been reduced to rubble in the last century, the fifteenth after the Hegira, the twenty-second of the Christian era. It was now about a hundred years later than that, and at last some of the bombed-out buildings were being reclaimed. My office was in one of them.

I was there because most of my former friends and associates had leaped to the other side, to the protection of Shaykh Reda Abu Adil. There were very few places that were safe for me back in the walled quarter, and few people I could trust. Hell, I didn’t really trust Mahmoud — never had — except he was reliably, scrupulously straightforward when large sums of money were involved.

I opened the outer door of my office, the one with the glass panel on which some frustrated portrait artist had lettered my new name, in both Arabic and Roman alphabets. Inside the door was a waiting room with a sagging couch, three wooden chairs, and a few items to help my few anxious clients pass the time: a scattering of newspapers and magazines, and chipzines for my more technologically advanced visitors, to be chipped directly into a moddy or daddy socket located in the hollow at the base of the skull.

I had a good grasp of the material of Musa’s gallebeya, which I used to propel him through the open inner door. He fell sprawling on the bare, shabby, wooden floor. I slouched in the comfortable chair behind my beat-up old desk. I let a sarcastic smile have its way for a second or two, and then I put on my grim expression. “I want to clear this up fast,” I said.

Musa had gotten to his feet and was glaring at me with all the defiance of youth and ignorance. “No problem,” he said, in what he no doubt imagined was a tough voice. “All you gotta do is come across.”

“By fast,” I said, deliberately not responding to his words, “I mean superluminal. Light-speed. And I’m not coming across. I don’t do that. Grab a seat while I make a phone call, O Young One.”

Musa maintained the rebellious expression, but some worry had crept into it, too. He didn’t know who I planned to call. “You ain’t gonna turn me over to the rats, are you?” he asked. “I just got out. Yallah, another fall and I think they’ll cut off my right hand.”

I nodded, murmuring Mahmoud’s commcode into my desk phone. Musa was right about one thing: Islamic justice as currently interpreted in the city would demand the loss of his hand, possibly the entire arm, in front of a huge, cheering crowd in the courtyard of the Shimaal Mosque. Musa would have no opportunity to appeal, either, and he’d probably end up back in prison afterward, as well.

“Marhaba,” said Mahmoud when he answered his phone. He wasn’t the kind of guy to identify himself until he knew who was on the other end of the line. I remembered him before he had his sex change, as a slender, doe-eyed sylph, dancing at Jo-Mama’s. Since then, he’d put on a lot of weight, toughness, and something much more alarming.

“Yeah, you right,” I replied. “Good news, Mahmoud. This is your investigator calling. Got the thief, and he hasn’t had time to do anything with the product. He’ll take you to it. What becomes of him afterward is up to you. Come take charge of him at your convenience.”

“You are still a marvel, O Wise One,” said Mahmoud. His praise counted about as much as a broken Bedu camel stick. “You have lost much, but it is as Allah wills. Yet you have not lost your native wit and ability. I will be there very soon, inshallah, with some news that might interest you.” Inshallah means “if God wills.” Nobody but He was too sure about anything of late.

“The news is the payment, right, O Father of Generosity?” I said, shaking my head. Mahmoud had been a cheap stiff as a woman, and he was a cheap stiff now as a man.

“Yes, my friend,” said Mahmoud. “But it includes a potential new client for you, and I’ll throw in a little cash, too. Business is business.”

“And action is action,” I said, not that I was seeing much action these days. “You know how much I charge for this sort of thing.”

“Salam alekom, my friend,” he said hurriedly, and he hung up his phone before I could salam him back.

Musa looked relieved that I hadn’t turned him over to the police, although I’m sure he was just as anxious about the treatment he could expect from Mahmoud. He had every reason in the world to be concerned. He maintained a surly silence, but he finally took my advice and sat down in the battered red-leather chair opposite my desk.

“Piece of advice,” I said, not even bothering to look at him. “When Mahmoud gets here — and he’ll get here fast — take him directly to his property. No excuses, no bargains. If you try holding Mahmoud up for so much as a lousy copper fiq, you’ll end up breathing hot sand for the remainder of your brief life. Understand?”

I never learned if the punk understood or not. I wasn’t looking at him, and he wasn’t saying anything. I opened the bottom drawer of my desk and took out the office bottle. Apparently a slow leak had settled in, because the level of gin was much lower than I expected. It was something that would bear investigating during my long hours of solitude.

I built myself a white death — gin and bingara with a hit of Rose’s lime juice — and took a quick gulp. Then I drank the rest of the tumblerful slowly. I wasn’t savoring anything; I was just proving to myself again that I could be civilized about my drinking habits.

Time passed in this way — Musa sitting in the red-leather chair, sampling emotions; me sitting in my chair, sipping white death. I’d been correct about one thing: It didn’t take Mahmoud long to make the drive from the Budayeen. He didn’t bother to knock on the outer door. He came through, into my inner office, accompanied by three large men. Now, even I thought three armed chunks were a bit much to handle ragged, little old Musa there. I said nothing. It wasn’t my business any longer.

Now, Mahmoud was dressed as I was, that is, in keffiya, the traditional Arab headdress, gallebeya, and sandals; the men with Mahmoud were all wearing very nice, tailored European-style business suits. Two of the suit jackets had bulges just where you’d expect. Mahmoud turned to those two and didn’t utter a word. The two moved forward and took pretty damn physical charge of Musa, getting him out of my office the quickest way possible. Just before he passed through the inner door, Musa jerked his head around toward me and said, “Rat’s puppet.” That was all.

That left Mahmoud and the third suit.

“Where you at, Mahmoud?” I asked.

“I see you’ve taken to dyeing your beard, O Wise One,” said Mahmoud by way of thanks. “You no longer look like a Maghrebi. You look like any common citizen of Asir or the Hejaz, for instance. Good.”

I was so glad he approved. I was born part Berber, part Arab, and part French, in the part of Algeria that now called itself Mauretania. I’d left that part of the world far, far behind, and arrived in this city a few years ago, with reddish hair and beard that made me stand out among the locals. Now all my hair was as black as my prospects.

Mahmoud tossed an envelope on the desk in front of me. I glanced at it but didn’t count the kiam inside, then dropped the envelope in a desk drawer and locked it.

“I cannot adequately express my thanks, O Wise One,” he said in a flat voice. It was a required social formula.

“No thanks are needed, O Benefactor,” I said, completing the obligatory niceties. “Helping a friend is a duty.”

“All thanks be to Allah.”

“Praise Allah.”

“Good,” said Mahmoud with some satisfaction. I could see him relax a little, now that the show was over. He turned to the remaining suit and said, “Shaykh Ishaq ibn Muhammad il-Qurawi, O Great Sir, you’ve seen how reliable my friend is. May Allah grant that he solve your problem as promptly as he solved mine.” Then Mahmoud nodded to me, turned, and left. Evidently, I wasn’t high enough on the social ladder to be actually introduced to Ishaq ibn Muhammad il-Qurawi.

I motioned to the leather chair. Il-Qurawi made a slight wince of distaste, then sat down.

I put on my professional smile and uttered another formulaic phrase that meant, roughly, “You have come to your people and level ground.” In other words, “Welcome.”

“Thank you, I — “

I raised a hand, cutting him off. “You must allow me to offer you coffee, O Sir. The journey from the Budayeen must have been tiring, O Shaykh.”

“I was hoping we could dispense with — “

I raised my hand again. The old me would’ve been more than happy to dispense with the hospitality song-and-dance, but the new me was playing a part, and the ritual three tiny cups of coffee was part of it. Still, we hurried through them as rapidly as social graces permitted. Il-Qurawi wore a sour expression the whole time.

When I offered him a fourth, he waggled his cup from side to side, indicating that he’d had enough. “May your table always be prosperous,” he said, because he had to.

I shrugged. “Allah yisallimak.” May God bless you.

“Praise Allah.”

“Praise Allah.”

“Now,” said my visitor emphatically, “you have been recommended to me as someone who might be able to help with a slight difficulty.”

I nodded reassuringly. Slight difficulty, my Algerian ass. People didn’t come to me with slight difficulties.

As usual, the person in the leather chair didn’t know how to begin. I waited patiently, letting my smile evaporate bit by bit. I found myself thinking about the office bottle, but it was impossible to bring it out again until I was alone. Strict Muslims looked upon alcoholic beverages with the same fury that they maintained for the infidel, and I knew nothing about il-Qurawi’s attitudes about such things.

“If you have an hour or two free this afternoon,” he said, “I wonder if you’d come with me to my office. It’s not far from here, actually. On the eastern side of the canal, but quite a bit north of here. We’ve restored a thirty-six-story office building, but recently there’s been more than the usual amount of vandalism. I’d like to hire you to stop it.”

I took a deep breath and let it out again. “Not my usual sort of assignment, O Sir,” I said, shrugging, “but I don’t foresee any problem. I get a hundred kiam a day plus expenses. I need a minimum of five hundred right now to pique my interest.”

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.

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.”

I slowly closed my eyes and tightened my lips. My right hand dropped its piece of bread and raised up tiredly to cover my tightly shut eyelids, at the same time massaging my forehead. We didn’t have enough facilities for mentals and nutsos in the city; we just let the ones with the wealthier families shut ‘em away in places like Group 26 in the CRCorp building. Yaa Allah, you never knew when you were going to run into one of these bereft cookies.

Still with my eyes covered, I could feel the man with the close-cropped white hair lean toward me on the other side. I knew that son of a biscuit hadn’t liked me from the get-go. “Get Marjory to tell you all about her raisins sometime. It’s a fascinating story in its own right.”

“Be sure to,” I murmured. In the spring with the apricots, I would. I picked up the bread with my eating hand again and opened my eyes. Everyone within hollering range was staring at me with rapt attention. I don’t know why; I didn’t want to know why then, and I still don’t want to know why. I hoped it was just that I was an oddity, a welcome interruption in the daily routine, like a visit from one of Prince Shaykh Mahali’s wives or children.

I’d had enough to eat, and so I’d picked up the tray — I’m quick on the uptake, and I’d figured out the disposal drill from observation. It wasn’t that difficult to begin with, and, jeez, I’m a trained professional, mush hayk? Yeah, you right. I slid the tray into the proper slot in the proper machine. Then il-Qurawi, having nothing immediate to do, chose to be nowhere in sight. I slumped back down between Marjory and the old, white-haired man. Fortunately, Marjory was still enchanted by her gelatin salad — the al-Qaddani moddy, a Palestinian fictional hardboiled-detective piece of hardware I was wearing, let me have the impression that Marjory was like this at every meal, whatever was served — and the old gentleman gave me a disapproving look, stood up, and moved away, toward what real people did to compensate society for their daily sustenance. For a few moments I had utter peace and utter silence, but I did not expect them to last very long. I was correct as usual in this sort of discouraging speculation.

Almost directly across from me was a woman with extremely large breasts, which were trapped in an undergarment which must have been painfully confining for them. I really wasn’t interested enough to read if they were genuine — God-given — or not; she must’ve thought she had, you know, the most devastating figure on all of Mars, and of course we understand what we mean when we speak of Mars. She wore a long, flowing, print shift of a drabness that directed all one’s attention elsewhere and upwards; bare feet; and a live, medium-sized, suffering lizard on one shoulder that was there only to extort yet another sort of response from you. As if her grotesque mamelons weren’t enough.

Oh, you were supposed to say, you have a live, medium-sized lizard on your shoulder. Now, when someone has gone to that amount of labor to pry a reaction from me, my innate obstinacy sets in. I will not look more than two or three times at the tits, casually, as after the first encounter they don’t exist for me. I won’t even glance furtively at her various other vulgar accoutrements. I won’t remark at all on the lizard. The lizard and I will never have a relationship; the woman and I barely had one, and that only through courtesy.

She spoke in a voice intended to be heard by the nearby portion of mankind: “I think Marjory means well.” She looked around herself to find agreement, and there wasn’t a single person still in the refectory who would contradict her. I got the feeling that would be true whatever she said. “I know for a fact that Marjory never goes beyond the buildings of the Mars colony. She never sees Allah’s holy miracle of creation. Does it not say in the Book, the noble Qur’ân, ‘Frequently you see the ground dry and barren: but no sooner do We send down rain to moisten it than it begins to tremble and magnify, putting forth each and every kind of blossoming life. That is because Allah is Truth: He gives life to the dead and has power over all things.’ She sat back, evidently very self-satisfied. “That was from the surah called ‘Pilgrimage,’ in the holy Qur’ân.”

“May the Creator of heaven and earth bless this recitation of His holy words,” said one man softly.

“May Allah give His blessing,” said a woman quietly.

I had several things I might have mentioned; the first was that the imitation surface of Mars I’d crossed was not, in point of fact, covered with every variety of blooming plant. Yet maybe to some of these people that was worth reporting to the authorities. Before I could say anything, a young, sparsely bearded man sat beside me in the old, white-haired resident’s seat, and addressed the elderly woman. The young man said, “You know, Umm Sulaiman, that you shouldn’t hold up Marjory as a typical resident of the Mars colony.”

Umm Sulaiman frowned. “I have further scripture that I could recite which supports my words and actions.”

The young man shuddered. “No, my mother-in-law” — clearly an honorific and a title not to be taken seriously — “all is as Allah wills.” He turned to me and murmured, “I wish the both of them — the two old women, Marjory and Umm Sulaiman — would stop behaving in their ways. I admit it, I’m superstitious, and it frightens me.”

“Seems a shame to pay all this money to CRCorp just to be frightened.”

The young man looked to either side, then leaned even closer. “I’ve heard a story, O Sir,” he murmured. “Actually, I’ve heard several stories, some as wild as Marjory’s, some even crazier. But, by the beard of the Prophet-”

“May the blessings of Allah be on him and peace,” I said.

“ — there’s one story that won’t go away, a story that’s repeated often by the most sane and reliable of our team.” Team: as if they really were part of some kind of international extraterrestrial project.

I pursed my lips and tried to show that I was rabidly eager to hear his bit of gossip. “And what is this persistent story, O Wise One?”

He looked to either side again, took my arm, and together we left the table and the others. We walked slowly toward the exit. “Now, O Sir,” he said, “I’ve heard this directly from Bin el-Fadawin, who is CRCorp and Shaykh il-Qurawi’s highest representative here in the Mars colony.”

“Group 26, you mean,” I said.

“Yeah, if you insist on it, Group 26.” It was obvious that he didn’t like his illusion broken, even for a moment. It cast some preliminary doubt on what he was about to tell me. “Listen, O Sir,” he said. “Bin el-Fadawin and others drop hints now and again that CRCorp has better uses for these premises, that they’re even now working on ways to turn away and run off the very people who’ve paid them for long-term care.”

I shrugged. “If CRCorp wanted to evict all of you, O Young Man, I’m sure they could do it without too much difficulty. I mean, they got the lawyers and you got, what, rocks and lichen? Still, you and all the others have handed over — and continue to hand over — truly exorbitant amounts of cash and property; and all they’ve really done is decorate to your specifications a large, empty space in a restored office tower.”

“They’ve created our consensual reality, please, O Shaykh.”

“Yeah, you right,” I said, amazed that this somewhat intelligent young man could be so easily taken in. “So you’re telling me that the CRs — which the corporation has worked so hard to create, and for which it’s being richly rewarded — will start disappearing, one by one?”

“Begin disappearing!” cried the young man. “Have Shaykh il-Qurawi-”

“Did I hear my name mentioned, O Most Gracious Ones?” asked my client, appearing silently enough through the door of the refectory room. “In a pleasant context, I hope.”

“I was commenting, O Sir,” I said, covering quickly, “on the truly spectacular job CRCorp has done here, inside the buildings and out. That little lizard Umm Sulaiman wears on her shoulder-is that a genuine Martian life form?”

“No,” he said, frowning slightly. “There aren’t any native lizards on Mars. We’ve tried to discourage her from wearing it — it creates a disharmony with what we’re trying to accomplish here. Still, the choice is her own.”

“Ah,” I said. I’d figured all that before; I was just easing the young man out of the conversation. “I believe I’ve seen enough here, O Sir. Next I’d like to see some of the vandalism you spoke of.”

“Of course,” said il-Qurawi, moving a hand to almost touch me, almost grasp my elbow and lead me from the refectory. He gave me no time at all for the typically effusive Muslim farewells. We left the building the way we’d come, and once again I used the mask and bottled air. However, we didn’t make the long trek across the make-believe Martian landscape; il-Qurawi knew of a nearer exit. I guess he had just wanted me to come the long way before, to sample the handiwork of CRCorp.

We ducked through a nearly invisible airlock near the colony buildings, and took an elevator down to floor seven. When we stepped in, I removed the mask and air tank. The air pressure and oxygen content of the atmosphere was Earth-normal.

I saw immediately il-Qurawi’s problem. Floor seven was entirely abandoned. In fact, except for some living quarters and outbuildings in the distance, and the barren and artificially landscaped “hills” and “valleys” built into the area, floor seven was nothing but a large and vacant loft a few stories above street level.

“What happened here, O Sir?” I asked.

Il-Qurawi turned around and casually indicated the entire floor. “This used to be a re-creation of Egypt at the time of the Ptolemies. I personally never saw the need for a consensual reality set in pre-Islamic times, but I was assured that certain academic experts wanted to reestablish the Library of Alexandria, which was destroyed by the Romans before the birth of the Prophet.”

“May the blessings of Allah be on him and peace,” I murmured.

Il-Qurawi shrugged. “It was functioning quite well, at least as well as the Martian colony, if not better, until one day it just…went away. The holographic images vanished, the specially created computer effects went offline, and nothing our creative staff did restored them. After a week or ten days of living in this emptiness, the people of Group 7 demanded a refund and departed.”

I rubbed my dyed beard. “O Sir, where are the controlling mechanisms, and how hard is it to achieve access to them?”

Il-Qurawi led me toward the northern wall. We had a good distance to hike. I saw that the floor was some molded synthetic material; it was probably the same as on floor twenty-six. All the rest was the result of the electronic magic of CRCorp — what they got paid for. I could imagine the puzzlement, then the chagrin, finally the wrath of the residents of floor seven.

We reached the northern wall, and il-Qurawi led me to a small metal door built into the wall about eye-level. He opened the door, and I saw some familiar computer controls while others were completely baffling to me; there were slots for bubble-plate memory units, hardcopy readout devices, a keyboard data-entry device, a voice-recognition entry device, and other things that were to some degree strange and unrecognizable to me. I never claimed to be a computer expert. I’m not. I just didn’t think it was profitable to let il-Qurawi know it.

“Wiped clean,” he said, indicating the hardware inside the door. “Someone got in — someone knowing where to look for the control mechanisms — and deleted all the vital programs, routines, and local effects.”

“All right,” I said, beginning to turn the problem over in my mind. It had the look of a simple crime. “Any recently discharged employee with a reason for revenge?”

Il-Qurawi swore under his breath. I admit it, I was a little shocked. That’s how much I’d changed since the old days. “Don’t you think we checked out all the simple solutions ourselves?” he grumbled. “Before we came to you? By the life of my children, I’m positive it wasn’t a disgruntled former employee, or a current one with plans for extortion, or any of the other easy answers that will occur to you at first. We’re faced with a genuine disaster: Someone is destroying consensual realities for no apparent reason.”

I blinked at him for a few seconds, thinking over what he’d just told me. I was standing in what had once been a replica of a strip of ancient civilization along the banks of the Nile River in pre-Muslim Egypt. Now I could look across the unfurnished space toward the other walls, seeing only the textured, generally flat floor in between. “You used the plural, O Sir,” I said at last. “How many other consensual realities have been ruined like this one?”

“Out of thirty rented floors,” he said quietly, “eighteen have been rendered inactive.”

I just stared. CRCorp didn’t just have a serious problem — it was facing extinction. I was surprised that the company hadn’t come to me sooner. Of course, il-Qurawi was the Chief of Security, and he probably figured that he could solve the mess himself. Finally, with no small degree of humiliation, I’m sure, he sought outside help. And he knew that I knew it. It was a good thing I wasn’t in a mood to rub it in, because I had all the ammunition I needed.

Il-Qurawi showed me a few other consensual realities, working ones and empty ones, because I asked him to. He didn’t seem eager for me to get too familiar with the CRCorp operation, yet if he wanted me to help with his difficulty, he had to give me a certain amount of access. He and his corporation were backed against the wall, and he recognized the truth of the matter. So I saw a vigorous CR based on an Eritrean-written fantasy-novel series almost a century old; and a successful CR that re-created a strict Sunni Islamic way of life that had never truly existed; and two more floors that were lifeless and unfurnished.

I decided that I’d seen enough for the present. Il-Qurawi thanked me for my time, wished me luck in my quest for the culprit, and hoped it wouldn’t take me too long to complete the assignment.

I said, “It shouldn’t be more than a day or two, inshallah. I already have some possibilities to investigate.” That was a lie. I was as lost as Qabeel’s spare mule.

He didn’t think it was necessary to accompany me back to my office. He just put me in the limousine with his driver. I didn’t care.

I got a scare when I got back to my office. During the time while I’d visited the CRCorp building, someone had defeated my expensive, elaborate security system, entered, and wiped my own CR hardware and software. The shabbiness had disappeared, replaced by the true polished floors and freshly painted walls of the office in the building. I’d worked diligently to reproduce the run-down office of Lufty Gad’s detective, al-Qaddani; but now the rooms were clean and new and sleek and modern. I was really furious. On my desk, under a Venetian glass paperweight, was a sheet of my notepaper with two handwritten words on it: A warning.

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful. I took out my prayer rug from the closet, spread it carefully on the floor, faced toward Makkah, and prayed. Then, my thoughts on higher things than CRCorp, I returned the rug to the closet. I sprawled in my chair behind the desk and stared at the notepaper. A warning. Hell, some guy was good at B & E, as well as cleaning out CRs, large and small. He hadn’t made me afraid, only so angry that my stomach hurt.

I didn’t want to look at my office space in its true, elegantly modern, fashionable form. Changing everything back the way it had been would be simple enough — I’d been wise enough to buy backups of everything from the small consensual-reality shop that had done up al-Qaddani’s office for me in the first place. It would take me half an hour to restore the slovenly look I preferred.

I was certain that Shaykh il-Qurawi had backups to his dysfunctional floors as well; it was only that CRCorp had tried to pass along the costs of the replacement to the residents, and they had balked, perhaps unanimously. I recalled an old proverb I’d learned from my mother, may Allah grant her peace: “Greed lessens what is gathered.” It was something CRCorp had yet to learn.

It also meant that everything that il-Qurawi had mentioned to me seemed to be close to its final resolution. I tipped a little from the office bottle into a tumbler and glanced at the setting sun through it. The true meaning — the actual one, the one that counted — had nothing to do with resolutions, however. I knew as well as I knew my childhood pet goat’s name that things were never this easy. Mark this down, it’s a free tip from an experienced operative (that means street punk): Things are never this easy. I’d known it before I started messing around on the street; then I’d learned it the simple way, from more experienced punks; and finally I’d had to learn it the hard way, too many times. Things are never this easy.

What I’m saying is that Simple Shaykh il-Qurawi knew perfectly well that he could do the same as I had, by way of chunking in the backup tapes, programs, and mechanisms. His echoing, forlorn floors would all quickly return to their fantasy factualities, and they’d probably be repopulated within days. CRCorp would then lose just a minimum of cash, and all the evil time could be filed away as just one of those bad experiences that had to be weathered by every corporation now and then.

Begging the question: Why, then, didn’t CRCorp use the backups immediately rather than suffer the angry defection of so many of its clients? And did il-Qurawi really think I was that stupid, that it all wouldn’t occur to me pretty damn fast?

Don’t ask me. I didn’t have a clue.

As the days went by, and the weeks, I learned through Bin el-Fadawin — CRCorp’s spy on floor twenty-six — that in fact some of the other floors had been restored, and some of their tenants had returned. Great, wonderful, I told myself, expecting il-Qurawi himself to show up with the rest of my money and possibly even a thank-you, although I don’t really believe in miracles.

Three weeks later I get a visitor from floor three. This was a floor that had been changed into a consensual-reality replica of a generation ship — a starship that would take generation upon generation to reach its goal, a planet merely called Home, circling a star named in the catalog simply as Wolf 359. They had years, decades, even 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 moddy-and-daddy technology. Some of us make a valuable practice of entering and exiting certain consensual realities. The rest of us — well, how many ways are there of hiding?”

“One,” I said. “Just one good way. The rest is merely waiting until you’re caught.”

Firon laughed brightly and pointed a finger. “Exactly! Exactly so! And what are you doing? Or I? Can we tell?”

I sat back down wearily. I didn’t want another white death, which I interpreted as a bad sign. “What do you want then from me?” I asked.

Firon stood and towered over me. “Just this, and listen well to me: We know who you are, we know how vulnerable you are. You must let us continue to make our small, almost inconsequential financial transactions, or we’ll simply reveal your identity. We’ll reveal it generally, if you take my meaning.”

“I take it precisely,” I said, feeling old and slow. Firon and his associates were threatening to expose me to my large number of enemies. I did feel old and slow, but not too old and slow. Firon, this young would-be tyrant, was so certain of his power over me that he wasn’t paying very close attention. He was a victim of his own pride, his own self-delusions. I took the nearly full bottle of gin and put it in the bottom drawer. At the same time, I took a small but extremely serviceable seizure gun — the one that used to belong to my second wife — from my ankle holster and I showed it to him. “Old ways are sometimes the best,” I said with a wry smile.

He sank slowly into the red-leather chair, a wide and wobbly grin on his face. “In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,” he said.

“Praise Allah,” I said.

“Now what?” asked Firon. “We’re at one of those famous impasses.”

I thought for a moment or two. “Here,” I said at last, “how’s this as a solution? You’re ripping off people in the CRCorp building who’ve become my friends, at least some of them have. I don’t like that. Still, I don’t have a goddamn problem with you and Musa and whomever else works with you pulling this gimmick all over town. You don’t turn my name over to Shaykh Reda, and I let you guys alone, unless you take on my few remaining friends. You do that wrong thing, and I’ll hand you right to the civil authorities, and you know — Musa sure as hell knows — what the penalties are.”

“We can trust you?”

“Can you?”

Firon took a deep breath, let it out, and nodded. “We can live with that. We can surely live with that! You’re a kind of legend among us. A small legend, an ignoble kind of legend, but if you were younger, our age….”

“Thanks a hell of a lot,” I said, still holding the seizure gun on him.

Firon got up and headed for my inner door. “You know, CRCorp knew about us from the beginning, and let us be. Shaykh il-Qurawi and the others just wanted to test out their security measures and their alarm programs. You care more about those people in that building than they do.”

“Somebody’s got to,” I said wearily.

“Peoples’ lives are their own, and there are no corporations, man!” He made some sort of sign with his hand in the gloomy outer office. I recalled what it had been like to be his age and youthfully idealistic.

Then he was gone.