'Marmas,' Jena explained as the humming grew nearer and more personal, 'are energy points within the body. They respond to physical manipulation. Massage.' She allowed herself to relax, too. It would be foolish to waste the opportunity.
The humming sound originated with the motors that lowered long rectangular shapes from the ceiling. Only slightly smaller than the bed-platforms directly below, each was densely covered with hundreds of synthetic rubberoid fingers, each of which could be individually pro grammed. Mai-ling let out a small 'Oh' of surprise as the prewarmed, rounded tips of the full-body massager above her made contact with her bare, oil-slick skin. With a precision no human masseuse could match, the fingers contracted until the upper platform was perfectly molded to her body from the back of her head to her upthrust heels, as if she were a priceless porcelain doll being measured for form-fitting shipping foam.
The synthetic fingers began to move; rubbing, pressing, manipulating, working the oil into her muscles and joints, relieving stress, gently but firmly pushing and stretching, relying on the intimate details that had been recorded by the scanning laser.
'Heavenly!' the executive sighed.
'Much more effective than its human counterparts,' Jena agreed. 'It's like having a dozen specialists work on you simultaneously instead of just one tired and maybe bored masseur. In addition to freeing you from stress and tension, Ayurvedic massage is supposed to be able to cure rheumatism, sciatica, bursitis, and many other ailments of the joints and muscles.'
Arching her body, she pushed firmly upward with her back and buttocks. As she did so, the platform containing the massaging synthetic fingers automatically retreated, allowing her to swing her legs off the platform and sit up. Head turned the other way, by now completely at ease and half asleep, the drowsy visitor from Guangdong took no notice of the other woman's silent and deliberate movements.
Prowling restlessly northward, the big cat cut through the forest in a wide arc, not approaching the edge of the jungle again until it was several kilometers from the place where it had encountered the TC device. Once more it found itself confronting a professionally maintained greensward fronting a jumble of multistory dwellings. These expensive townhomes were only two and three stories high, with open space separating every cross-shaped quad of housing. Their inhabitants paid a premium for considerable interior space and a location on the border of the world-renowned reserve.
In this wealthier, more developed neighborhood, a barrier of charged cables the height of several men separated landscaping from jungle. Other special wires had been laid below the surface, carrying current underground to repel anything smart or active enough to try digging beneath the fence. A meter off the ground, the steady, subdued beam of a blue sensor laser was flanked by two of the softly buzzing cables. Anything living that made contact with them would receive a jolt powerful enough to discourage even a determined elephant or rhino, of which there were many living in the preserve. Anything that also broke the beam of the sensor would trigger an alert plus a swift response from the privately maintained ranger stations that were situated at intervals along the border with the reserve. A sloping, dry moat designed to keep children away from the fence paralleled the barrier on its north-south run. Evenly spaced warning signs provided the same function for adults.
Neither Ritu, in her stone-washed green jeans and sun-repellent matching blouse, or Vinod in his trendy one-piece pseudo-chamois relaxer, gave any thought to their surroundings as they ran, hand in hand, toward the fence line. Both from comparatively well-off families, each with a year left at university, she attractive and he handsome, they cavorted with the air of those in their early twenties who were convinced they were immortal and destined for Great Things.
'We shouldn't be doing this,' she giggled nervously but expectantly as she looked back toward the receding shape of her parent's quad.
'I know.' Vinod squeezed her hand a little tighter as he led her on. 'Isn't that why we are doing it?'
They shared the delicious, knowing smile of those tempting the forbidden as he guided her toward the place he had found. Here and there, large natural conglomerations of gray granite had been left standing among the lawns, flowers, and decorative bushes by the quad's builders. The natural rock piles provided places for children to play, older juveniles to scramble and fight, and adults to sit quietly. The two university students intended to use the outcropping Vinod had chosen to sit, but not quietly. And truth be told, to do something other than sit.
They were alone, which was the idea. Vinod's flashlight illuminated the way. They were hurrying across grass, well away from the nearest winding, paved walking path.
A little out of breath, he slowed as they neared the stone outcrop. The beam of his flashlight played across the rocks. Though the waxing slim sliver of moon was hidden behind clouds and not visible tonight, the whitened, ghostly aspect of the raw granite was suitably lunar.
'Come on,' he urged her. In the dim light, his teeth were whiter than the rocks.
'What?' Uncertain, she gestured with a nod of her head. 'Up
'Why not?' He grinned challengingly. 'Afraid of heights?'
'Hardly,' she shot back. 'It just does not look very… comforting.'
'You can lay your head on my lap,' he told her.
'Yes, you would like that, wouldn't you?' After a moment to let the tease sink in, she matched his grin with one of her own. 'All right. But mind your hands on the way up.'
He started toward the nearest slope. 'On the way up, I promise. After that…' A multitude of possible interpretations were left dangling in the air. Significantly, she did not bother to swat them away.
It was an easy climb. Children made it. But at this hour of the night there were no children about, nor any others their own age. It was midweek, after all, and people had to get up in the morning to go to work, or to class. Not even the warning lights of a nocturnal jogger utilizing the nearest paved path materialized to interrupt the solitude they sought. Somewhere deep in the woods on the other side of the security fence, a brilliantly blued lilac- breasted roller warbled in con fusion. A diurnal bird, it was not normally active this late at night.
'I can't thank you enough for this suggestion.' Gently cupped between upper and lower platforms, body massaged by hundreds of tenderly, precisely programmed synthetic fingertips, the visiting businesswoman's voice had dropped to a completely contented whisper. 'How long should we stay like this? Is the treatment timed, or can we stay as long as we wish?'
'I believe such automated systems charge by the half hour. It should be charged automatically to your room.' Slipping, literally, off the plat form, Jena made her way to the open closet where she had placed her clothes. The room's subdued light glistened off the oil on her skin.
'Have to stay for an hour, then,' Mai-ling murmured. 'Remember, it's all on expense account.'
Jena did not reply. Instead, she took out and unsealed the long carrying bag she had brought with her and reached inside. The steel of the sword that she extracted had been polished to a mirror-bright shine. Its presence did not alarm the room's programming. Nor would a hotel of this class think of installing security cameras in so exclusive a venue, lest a single outraged guest sue for invasion of privacy.
The tip of the sword hanging from her clenched right fist nearly scraped the floor as the naked Jena quietly approached the occupied bed-platform. Through the perfumed mist that filled the massage chamber, the gleaming, oiled, nude body of the visiting female executive was visible as a pale streak between the upper massage platform and the lower basin. Chinese egg roll, the expatriate Frenchwoman thought, without a flicker of a smile.
'You have a beautiful body,' she murmured, barely audible above the tinkling, seductive strains of sitar and shehnai.
'Umm.' Mai-ling started to turn her head to face her newfound friend. 'How do I get this to let me turn over?'
'Just turn,' Jena told her softly. 'The unit's sensors will detect your movement and respond accordingly.'
'Okay.' The other woman started to roll onto her back. 'You know, this setup is wonderful, but sometimes there's no substitute for the
'Believe me, I know,' a somber-voiced Jena admitted without hesitation.
The look of expectation and anticipation on the businesswoman's face hardly had time to turn to horror as the sword descended.
Vinod helped Ritu to the crest. The rock outcropping fell off more sharply on the other side. From this vantage point they were able to look directly over the reserve's underbrush and into its trees. He amused him self by switching the flashlight off and then suddenly shining it into the branches. Once, the beam picked out a family of macaques moving through the canopy. Other than that, the forest was asleep.
