When the Devil Dances

“This is one of the cafeterias,” Wendy said turning off of a main corridor into a large antechamber. There was a series of roped off “mouse mazes” leading to four open blast doors. Beyond the blast doors was a long, low room with a fairly standard cafeteria line down the middle. There was a stack of trays, cups, a beverage dispensing unit with a limited selection, utensils and sundries and a short section of food. The food consisted of rather bland dishes, weighted heavily towards starches.

Wendy took a tray and moved down the line accepting a helping of corn and a small piece of badly overcooked pork from the unsmiling servers. Elgars followed, carefully mimicking her choices.

At the end of the line Wendy turned to a small box mounted near eye height. The screen lit up and identified her correctly then scanned her plate. It noted that she had received their midday ration and indicated a large calorie balance.

Wendy gestured at that. “Unless you’re a real pig, you can make it on less than the calories that you’re allotted every day. You can transfer a percentage of it to somebody else’s account and you get increases for community service. It’s the main medium of trade in the Urb.”

Elgars stepped up to the box which repeated the performance noting an even larger ration balance.

Wendy raised an eyebrow quizzically and looked at the details at the bottom of the readout. “Oh, that makes sense,” she said with a nod. “You’re on active duty ration levels; which basically means a double ration.”

“Why’s that?” Elgars asked as they headed for the door.

“Active duty is assumed to be doing physical labor,” Wendy pointed out. “Anyone that does day in and day out physical labor has a higher ration level; it’s based on 2600 calories per day so that individuals can have some to trade. But if you’re in the infantry, say, you’re usually expending that much every day. So they double the ration level.” She shook her head. “That’s not real well known, but once you’ve been in this hole for a while you learn stuff.”

They passed through a second set of open blast doors and into the eating area beyond, where Elgars stopped to look around.

The ceiling was about twenty meters high with glow-paint along the upper portions of the walls and onto the ceiling that gave a fairly pleasant indirect lighting. The walls, with one exception, were floor to ceiling murals, this one being a southwestern motif. The exception was a wall that was clearly stone, but unlike most of the other stone walls that Elgars had seen, this was a pattern of red on red with yellows shot through. It was pretty and clearly fit with the overall motif, but something about it waked an unpleasant memory. Elgars shivered and looked away.

The room was filled with tables and had six marked exit doors on the far side from the entry. In addition, on the parallel walls were large blast doors marked “Authorized Emergency Personnel Only.”

“The cafeterias double as emergency shelters,” Wendy said, gesturing at the doors. “There’s nothing in them which is a fire hazard, just the tables and some drink dispensers that are pressurized in another room. In the event of a fire in the sector, people are directed to the cafeterias. The blast doors close and internal ventilation goes on; the ventilators are on the other side of those doors.

“There are eight in each of the housing sectors, two in Sector A, two in Sector F and one in each of the others. The ration level varies day by day and what’s here is what you get; there’s not much variety. There are a few ‘restaurants’ scattered around, but they’re not much better and they all get the same food. There’s a couple of ‘bars’ for that matter. Not that there’s anything much to drink, either.”

Elgars nodded and gestured with her head towards the rock wall. She still didn’t like the look of it, but she wanted to know how the designer had gotten the pattern into it and what it was made out of.

“That’s actually sandstone,” Wendy said, guessing her question. “Each of the cafeterias are a different motif. For this one, the designers had some sandstone rubble shipped in and they vitrified it. That’s what that melted rock is. It’s been broken down by Galactic diggers — which shatter the rock by ionizing some of the molecules in it — then put in forms and melted.”

As they sat down Elgars sniffed the offering then carefully cut the pork into tiny bites and slowly ate each one. Wendy was done eating before the captain was done cutting.

“Your voice changed again,” Wendy commented, dabbing at her lips with a cloth napkin. “Back there dealing with security.”

“I’ ha’?” Elgars asked. She carefully cut out a bit of fat and flipped it off her plate. “How?”

“You keep sliding in and out of a southern accent,” Wendy noted. “And when you’re speaking with that accent, you don’t have a speech impediment. Where are you from?”

“Nuh J’sey,” Elgars answered.

“So, where’s the southern accent come from?”