she had always admired-Wilma's reconstruction of the interior of the Taj Mahal. It appeared to be dawn there, and only the faintest pale pearly light suffused the marble interiors.
Megan stuck her head in through the 'doorway.' 'Wil?' she said.
'In here…'
Megan walked through, under the soaring expanse of the great central dome, while outside the dawn began to strengthen toward day. Wilma had told her that this vast polished expanse of carved marble was 'only for practice.' The virtual interior she was presently working on building was the one that even Shah Jehan had never managed to complete while living, the pure black twin to the pure-white Taj. Jehan had intended to build this shadow of the Taj's light directly across from the first building, at the end of another series of reflecting pools. Wilma had told Megan that she was going to build it again in her virtual space, but not as just a copy of the white Taj. She had been researching the original plans, of which copies had turned up some years ago in the 'Buried Library' outside Tehran, and was going to resurrect the planned building, along with the planned sculptures, as a surprise for Burt.
Now Megan strolled in under the slowly brightening dome and shook her head, looking up at veils and screens and columns of delicately pierced marble, delicate Mo- ghul calligraphy and wall-carvings all painstakingly reproduced, and wondered whether Burt appreciated what Wilma was doing as a present for him. If he doesn 7, she thought, he needs his head felt…
But then maybe that's just the point. She wondered whether psychiatric screening was any part of what they did for you in Breathing Space. It wasn't anything she would have ever felt comfortable suggesting to Burt herself.. but the thought had occurred to Megan, often enough, that someone who'd been through what he'd been through with his folks might possibly benefit from a little counseling…
She strolled across the marble floor to where Wilma kept the 'work' part of her workspace. This was a replica of her home's dining room table, a massive thick-legged artifact of polished teak, its top all inlaid with beautiful light-wood curlicue designs that were the work (Wilma had told her) of an eccentric uncle who had lived in New Zealand. The ornate surface was covered, as usual, with school notes, notebooks, virtual pads like the one Megan's mother had been working on, and as always, a set of rolled-up duplicates of the Black Taj codices, three flaking- edged folios of ancient parchment written all over in Hindi or Urdu… Megan could never remember which was which. Wilma, in an electric-blue T-shirt and leg-sliks surprisingly tight for her usually more conservative tastes, glanced up at Megan as she came. 'What kept you?'
'A long shower,' Megan said, 'and the inevitable brother. Dad keeps saying he's going to have them come and install another Net server, but somehow he keeps getting distracted.'
Wilma sighed. 'Tell me about it,' she said. 'My little sister practically lives in our Net chair. I don't know why she doesn't develop bedsores.'
She straightened up from the paperwork and looked around her. 'Hey, Rube!'
'Yeah, what, boss?' said an annoyed, gruff male voice out of the air. This was Wilma's workspace management program, which for reasons Megan couldn't quite follow appeared to be some sort of eternally irascible reincarnation of Wilma's uncle who'd made the table. For her own part, Megan preferred management programs to have a little less personality, but there was no accounting for tastes. 'Hey, Megan.'
'Hi, Uncle Doug,' Megan said.
'Stop socializing and get busy!' Wilma said.
'It'd help if you told me what you wanted me to be busy with. I don't read minds,' said 'Uncle Doug,' 'and I don't think you're about to buy me enough processing power to fake it.'
'The address I gave you,' Wilma said. 'Open a door to it.'
A black patch about the size and shape of a door appeared. 'Please note,' said 'Uncle Doug' in a changed tone of voice, 'that this access is controlled. All access to the space is by express permission of Breathing Space Inc., and unauthorized accesses or attempts to enter or exit the space by other than officially sanctioned means will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law under statutes defining criminal trespass and violation of privacy according to appropriate state, federal, and international authorities. Persons with restraining orders filed against them are warned that entry into this space is regarded as physical approach in all states except Hawaii, Colorado, and North Dakota. Entry into this space indicates that you understand and accept these conditions.'
'Right,' Wilma said, 'we accept, let's go!'
She went through the door. Megan went after her.
A moment later they found themselves standing in a large, bright reception area, as unprepossessing and impersonal as an airport: high white walls, soft white lighting from high up in a forty-foot-high virtual ceiling. In the middle of it all was a plain white desk with a severe- looking dark-haired young man sitting behind it. They made their way toward him, and he looked them over as the two of them came up to his desk.
'Wilma Christensen,' he said, 'and Megan O'Malley?'
'Yeah,' and 'That's right,' they said.
'Here to see Burt Kamen' He glanced into the air to one side of the desk, probably at some data readout that the local space was set for them not to see. 'Right. You ladies understand the rules? Don't ask him for information about where he is physically. That's his business. Other than that, there's no limit on visiting times- any time he chooses to have the system flag him as 'available,' you're welcome. The only exception to that is when he's meeting with family. The same entry combination he gave you will work for any further accesses, but if you attempt entry through any other Net address than this one, you'll be banned. Address control like this is the only way we can guarantee our clients' safety, and we take it very seriously.'
They both nodded. 'Okay,' said the young man, 'he's through there. Follow the blue tracer. It'll lead you to him.'
A small spark of blue light appeared, and immediately thereafter, another door appeared in the air. The blue light drifted through it, and Megan and Wilma followed.
Megan, at least, had to pause for a moment to gaze around her in sheer appreciation as they came out the 'other side.' The landscape stretching away around them on all sides was absolutely breathtaking-some mountain range in the northern Rockies, she suspected. The hills running up to them, among which she and Wilma stood, lacked that manicured, managed look to be seen in the foothills of the Alps. Someone did a really great job building this, Megan thought, for she knew there was more to constructing a virtual domain than simply patching in a lot of 360-degree stereo stills. The wind blew, there was a faint fizz and hiss of rustling aspen leaves on the branches of the little patches of woodland surrounding them. The air smelled of snow and the pine trees that started farther up the slope of this particular line of hills. There was no one else to be seen for miles around… and Megan suspected this virtual 'clear space' had been crafted as much for psychological reasons as for its sheer beauty and restfulness. It was a place made for people who had had entirely too much of the people closest to them, lately.
The little blue light was sailing ahead of them, through the aspen spinney and out the other side. The two of them headed after it, through the spinney, up a bare path through the grass to a gentle hillcrest, and down the far side. There was a single figure there, sitting under a tree, wearing worn jeans and a tank top; as they spotted him, and the blue light went sailing down toward him, the sun came out and flashed brilliantly on shining blond hair. He glanced up.
'Burt!'
Wilma ran down the slope to him as he got up, hurrying toward her as Wilma hurried. A few seconds later they rushed together, and Megan wasn't quite sure where to look, except not at them-for it can be painful to find that, despite all the good help you think you've been giving your friend, she has nonetheless just barely been holding it together. Now Wilma and Burt were clinging to each other, and Wilma was just barely stifling the sobs, but it was a close thing. Burt was hugging her hard, with his face scrunched down into her shoulder, and from the shapes into which his expression was twisting itself, Megan half thought he might cry, too. But he hung on to his composure, and after a few moments Wilma pulled herself together as well, and said, in a slightly strangled voice, 'I was so worried about you!'
'You didn't have to be… you know I can take care of myself.'
'Yeah,' Wilma said, 'but that's different from knowing that you don't have to be taking care of yourself, that you're all right!'
Burt winced a little, and then said, 'If I'd known you were going to carry on like this, maybe I wouldn't have told you where I was… '
'Nice to see you, too, Burt,' Megan said, rather dryly.
