She led him into the bedroom. Smiling but uncertain, he followed. 'I don't see anything. Am I supposed to see something?'
'Watch,' she advised him. Moving to her right, she took the system vorec out of the drawer where she had concealed it and spoke commands.
The lights in the bedroom darkened. Traditional music-sensuous with sitar, pregnant with tabla drums-issued from unseen speakers. The delicious scent of roses and sandalwood tickled Taneer's nostrils. Concealed projection units came to life, their imaging converging on the large bed that occupied the far side of the room.
Out of the converging lights two figures coalesced, one male, one female. They were Indian, but they were not dressed like anyone Taneer had ever seen outside of a movie or vit special. Clad in the jewels and sparse but royal raiment of more than a thousand years ago, they knelt facing one another on the bed. As he watched, they began to disrobe. The man stared into the woman's eyes, and she into his. Their bodies were suffused with the gleam of the golden light of which they were composed.
Standing on tiptoes once again, a delighted Depahli whispered into her man's ear. 'They're waiting for us.'
Sophisticated in the ways of modern science Taneer might be, but there were zones of experience into which his expertise and knowledge had not delved. It was clear she had succeeded in surprising him. Her delight was complete, and there was more to come. Much more to come.
'I don't understand.' He was still smiling, but clearly confused. 'What are we supposed to do? Watch?'
'Silly man.' Taking both of his hands in hers, she backed toward the bed, gently drawing him with her. 'Don't you know by now that I don't care for spectator sports?' With a nod, she indicated the lam bent figures kneeling on the bed. 'They are special avatars, customized just for us. Don't you see that the man's dimensions match yours, and that of the woman mine?'
'I still don't understand,' he confessed as she helped him remove his clothing.
'You cannot imagine how much it pleases me to have discovered something you don't understand, Mr. Taneer Buthlahee I-know-all.' Giggling, she moved toward the still-motionless, three-dimensional, fully formed female image kneeling on the bed-and knelt within it. Not beside it-within it.
As the equipment recognized her incursion and the appropriate program reacted to her presence, the glow that now surrounded her intensified. It was as if she had suddenly taken up habitation within a ghost. While Taneer could see her clearly through the sculpted light, she wore around her as weightlessly as chiseled breath the image of the woman from ancient times, though no moisture was involved. When Depahli raised her hand to beckon to him, the ethereal figure she now occupied gestured simultaneously. It was as if, he thought, she had slipped into the most diaphanous of full body gloves.
Warily, he moved to join her on the bed. All giggles and smiles at his hesitation, she helped him to position his naked form within the image of the ancient warrior-king kneeling opposite her. As his eyes threatened to play tricks on him, he had to blink several times to get used to what he was seeing, which, of course, was the intent of the system's designers.
'I've seen installations of this kind in commercial use,' he muttered uncertainly. 'I didn't know they were available for home purchase.'
'You would be surprised, my big darling, what is available for home purchase.'
He leaned toward her. As he did so, the radiant, shimmering image of the ancient warrior-king he was 'wearing' matched itself perfectly to his movements. 'You have become quite the feisty little box cutter, haven't you?' Raising his right arm, he stared in fascination at the glow that enveloped it. It conformed perfectly to the shape of his arm.
'Watch this.' She uttered a command in the direction of the vorec lying on the end table.
The diameter of the lustrous aura sheathing his arm expanded slightly, becoming instantly more muscular. Looking down, he saw that the rest of his radiant shell had taken on the build of a formidable athlete. And that wasn't all.
'You little minx!' he growled affectionately. 'Do you want your new toy to give me a complex?'
'No, no!' Giggling, she rescinded the order, and his gently pulsing outer shell became once again more cloak than camouflage.
The slight tingling he felt was probably imaginary, he decided. The installation generated no heat, no stimulation of the nervous system. That, they would have to supply themselves. 'What else can this devilish little plaything of yours do?'
'Oh, many things. I have been practicing religiously since the installers left. See?' She spoke another command.
He found himself looking down at the glowing image of none other than the goddess Parvati herself, from within whose many-armed facade the face of the woman for whom he had forsaken family and tradition stared back at him. Part of the amazing apparition, however, was obstructed by his trunk.
Looking down at himself, he saw glowing around his own body stumpy legs, a protuberant belly, tusks, and most impressively, a slowly waving, startlingly realistic trunk.
'Ganesh and Parvati. What a combination.' He wagged a finger at her, since he had no control over the trunk. 'Fun is fun, but don't be sacrilegious!'
'All right,' she laughed. A quick command, and they were once more swathed in still-imposing but more straightforward maiden and king. 'Get ready.'
'Ready?' He tried not to sound alarmed. 'Ready for what?'
'School is in session, my love, and I guarantee you are going to enjoy the homework.'
This time she addressed a much more complicated command to the vorec. Taneer jerked slightly as his lambent avatar began to move. So did the one in front of him. Not only were they moving together, they were moving
'You have to follow along,' Depahli chided him. 'The virtual sutra not only performs, it also instructs. If you don't stay inside the projections, the program reverts back to the beginning and waits for you to start over.'
'I… see,' he mumbled, a little weakly. 'It's like one of the thousands of inhabitable virtual games you can download from your box to your vit.'
'Yes,' she told him. Her smile widened. 'An instructional game. I can command it to run as a continuous loop, until we get it right.'
'Get what right?' He swallowed hard.
'Third lotus position. Part of the installation's programming contains the entire
It took him a moment to catch on. Whenever he moved a part of his body correctly, identical to the movement of his avatar, its glow intensified. When he made a misstep and part of him thrust outside his ethereal envelope, its movements slowed and its glow faded.
It was really quite simple, he decided as they progressed. All you had to do was follow the patient, guiding movements of your wraithlike self and physical adjustments that might previously have seemed impossible suddenly became simple and understandable. Enthusiasm quickly replaced hesitation. Any initial feelings of inadequacy disappeared. It was perfectly appropriate that such a system and its resident software should be available in India, he reflected through his exhaustion and his sweat. Did not the very word 'avatar' descend from the Sanskrit?
Before the night was done, the radiance from their respective and untiring avatars blushed bright enough to read fine print by.
*6*
No one paid any particular attention to the tall, willowy foreign woman who slipped like a wind-borne twig through the narrow streets. This part of the city was used to being inundated with spurts of tourists. They came and went like sudden hailstorms, pelting the locals with questions and camera flashes and the smell of money, and then they went away.
