Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

*5*

Sanjay could hardly believe his luck. First, he had escaped the unexpected late monsoon downpour simply by being aboard the transfer bus when the storm had struck. Then, it had let up just long enough for a silent electric transport to disgorge its load of tourists in front of the long line of shops of which his was one. When the intermittent storm had returned with full force the steaming, soaking gray downpour had driven the ill-prepared visitors into the shops, whose proprietors waited to greet them with open arms, wide smiles, hot tea, and hastily inflated prices.

Sanjay made out as well as any of his neighbor merchants. With so much tourist largesse to spread around, there was none of the occasional acrimony that bubbled up when one lucky shopkeeper succeeded in monopolizing the clientele. Not for the first time, Sanjay thought he should add some T-shirts to his inventory. It took a lot of space to display them properly, but the profit margin was substantial.

It was while he was contemplating this potential expansion of his stock that a local gentleman entered. Sanjay sized him up swiftly. About his own age, the visitor was dressed modestly but was exceedingly well groomed. It was almost as if he was deliberately dressing down. For what reason someone might do this, Sanjay could not imagine. In contemporary India, the style was to flaunt it if you had it. Sanjay himself had no compunctions about showing off his fine wrist communicator or designer running shoes. Perhaps this gentleman's better clothes were all with his laundry-wallah.

Though he pretended to inspect the shop's offerings, it was clear from the moment the man entered that he was no tourist. Feigning disinterest, Sanjay missed nothing as he followed the visitor's movements. Occasionally he would find himself diverted to attend to another potential customer. Interestingly, and strangely, each time someone else entered, it seemed to unsettle the man.

Shit or get off the pot, Sanjay thought, employing a favorite metaphor an American tourist lady had once explained to him in her careful English. If the man was too uneasy to approach him…

"Excuse me," he said with a smile, "may I help you, sir? Are you looking possibly for something in particular? For a lady, perhaps?"

Unexpectedly, the man looked alarmed. "What makes you say that?" From his tone Sanjay could tell that this odd caller was an educated person.

"Is it such an unusual thing to ask, when a man looks at silver and amber jewelry for almost an hour without inquiring about anything?"

Sanjay had a smile that was all the more winning for being genuine, instead of manufactured like that of some of his fellow shop owners. It relaxed his edgy visitor-a little.

"No, I suppose it is not. I am not here shopping for a woman. I am, in a way, shopping for myself." He glanced significantly at the door. "Would it be possible for us to have some privacy?"

Sanjay hesitated only briefly. He had owned his business long enough to recognize a potential robber on sight, and this peculiar visitor was not one. The man's look, his voice, even his clothing were all wrong. Sliding his fingertips over the appropriate contacts on his gold bracelet, Sanjay locked the door, darkened the windows, and activated the shop's security bubble.

"There," he announced when he was done. "No one can see us; no one can hear us." He indicated the window. "We are safe from infrared scopes, directional microphones, and all manner of eavesdropping equipment. Is that enough privacy for you?"

Tension leached out of the man like steam from a safety valve. "My friend was right. You are as vigilant as he claimed."

"Please, have a seat." Directing his guest to the chair opposite, Sanjay sat down behind his counter. Without thinking and despite his

prelimi nary appraisal of the visitor, he made sure that the safety was off on the drawer that concealed the loaded pop-up gun. "What friend was that?"

"No need to bring his name into this." Taneer had to fight not to keep glancing in the direction of the door. The shop owner's assurances notwithstanding, the street, after all, was still very close. "Or mine."

Sanjay shrugged. Whatever game his visitor was playing, the rules would no doubt eventually be spelled out. "As you wish. What shall I call you?"

"'Mohan' will do."

Sanjay had a quick response. "But you're not, are you?"

It brought the first hint of a smile, which did not linger long. "My friend told me that you have many interesting contacts on the street, and that you sometimes deal in items not usually found in tourist gift shops." When Sanjay started to reach for the relevant hidden sample drawer, Taneer raised a hand. "That's not what I'm interested in. I need an intermediary. An honest broker." The intensity in his voice matched that of his stare. "The most important thing is, my friend said you were discreet and reliable."

"I am very much flattered, sir. I come from a small, poor village where sometimes all a man has to offer are such intangibles." He indicated their surroundings. "I am convinced it has helped me to get where I am today. So. I take it, then, that you are not here to buy, but that you have something you wish to sell?"

Taneer nodded.

"Can I see it?" Sanjay prompted him. "What is it? Gold? Jewels? Pre-nineteenth-century artifacts? Please be at ease. I assure you that I can be most conveniently ambivalent where provenance is concerned." He hesitated only momentarily. "Drugs? Restricted pornography?"

His visitor took a deep breath. Bending over in the chair, he reached down and removed his right shoe. The heel, interestingly, rotated side ways beneath his fingers to reveal a hidden compartment from which "Mohan" withdrew a tiny metal case. Utilizing his own control bracelet, he entered a combination that unlocked this. It contained a single molly-sphere. A small one, no bigger in diameter than the tip of Sanjay's little finger. The man handled it as if it were a flawless hot pink diamond.

"That tells me nothing." When it came to business, Sanjay could be disarmingly direct. "I surmise it most probably contains information you desire to sell." His visitor nodded confirmation. "I am sure you will tell me how and to whom you want it offered. But first you must tell me what you want for it. Your asking price."

Taneer held out the molly. "Before we get to that, you need to know that this is a copy. Not to insult you, but without periodic electronic reactivation by me, the information it contains will simply evaporate. So there's no point in anyone trying to take it by force. As to potential buyers, I'll give you the names of several companies with offices or representatives in the city who I think will be interested in what I am offering.

"Your task will be to find a safe and respected means of engaging them through a third party. You will act as my primary agent in this. No one else is to be involved except yourself and whoever you choose to use as your own intermediary. That way, you will be in contact with me and this other individual, while they will have contact only with you and the eventual buyer. As I will never have any dealings with this third party, they will not be able to identify me to anyone else who might be looking for me. While I realize this arrangement is slightly cumbersome, it will put another level of separation between myself and the final purchaser. It will be more time-consuming, and will cost me more because two commissions will have to be paid, but the added distance provides a necessary additional level of safety." Changing tack, he scanned the area behind the counter.

"Do you have an old-style, free-standing calculator? One with a simple built-in readout and no integrated projection unit?"

Removing the requested device from a drawer, Sanjay pushed it across the countertop. His visitor tapped on it briefly, then slid it back. "The information I have for sale will be sold by single bid, one chance only. No negotiations, no auction. The bids are to be submitted in a format and at a time I will specify later." He tapped the calculator's faded readout screen. "This is the figure I expect to sell at. Your com mission, if all goes as well as I hope, will be one percent."

Sanjay almost rose angrily from his chair. What a waste of time this had been! he thought. An imposition on his hospitality and his good nature! Then he saw the figure the man had entered.

It nearly did not fit on the calculator's readout.

He sat back down, scowled at the figure. "There is a mistake. Your finger must have weighed too long on the zero."

"No." Taneer spoke quietly, folding his arms in front of him. "There is no mistake. That is the correct figure. In U.S. dollars."

Now Sanjay knew it had to be a mistake. Either that, or his visitor was an exceptionally well-dressed escapee from one of the city's many asylums. The smile he had been wearing ever since the other man had entered was in danger of disappearing permanently. "You are most unkindly playing some kind of game with me. This is a joke."

Taneer shook his head slowly from side to side. His expression was completely sober, dead serious. "Am I smiling? Have I been acting like someone with nothing better to do than spend my afternoons playing bad jokes on people I've never met before? Do you think I have spent as much time in this shop as I have already in order to leave with nothing more than a smile?"

Sanjay's mind was racing furiously. Though he was good with fig ures, he knew he was not a fast thinker, or a deep one. He was smart enough to know his limitations. What this stranger was proposing, if it indeed was not all part of some elaborate joke being played on him by a friend or acquaintance, or a reality vit show being recorded by a hidden camera, was so far beyond anything he had dealt with previously, even in his business with Bindar, as to border on the inconceivable.

So, in his usual direct manner, he said as much.

"That's why I'm here, presenting this proposition to you now," his visitor explained. "There are others who were recommended to me that I could have gone to; more sophisticated, more knowledgeable, with access to more extensive resources than you and your little business." San jay took no offense at these words. He had never regarded the truth as insulting. "But they are also much more likely to be watched, to be under observation."

No fool, Sanjay asked, "Watched by who?"

Having not come to an agreement, Taneer continued to hold back everything that was not necessary. "Those who would rather steal than purchase. I'm sure even in your business you've had to deal with such people."

Glad of the commonality, however tenuous, Sanjay nodded knowingly. "Truly, the world is full of thieves. People who make it difficult for someone to make an honest living." He did not add that he was still very much unsure as to which of those two groups his visitor belonged. That, however, need not prevent the doing of business. "There is some possible danger attached to this dealing, then?"

Taneer nodded brusquely. "With this kind of money involved, how could it be otherwise? I assure you that I'm running a much bigger risk than you, though. It's this they're after." He rolled the small, spherical storage device around in his palm. "And me. Are you still interested?"

Sanjay had already made up his mind. The risks in agreeing to deal with this stranger were unknown. The reward, if his visitor was being truthful, was potentially enormous. He could have everything he had ever dreamed of. Everyone he knew could have everything they had ever dreamed of. Silently, he converted the figure his guest had entered into the calculator from American dollars to Indian rupees. The number was so high he did not even have a proper name for it.

His one percent commission would not be so insignificant after all.

"Five percent," he replied gruffly. He could not help it. It was in his blood.

For the first time since he had entered the shop, Taneer chuckled. "Two."

"Four," Sanjay countered.

"Two." Taneer started to rise.

"Three," Sanjay countered again, perhaps a bit too anxiously.

Shaking his head with amusement, Taneer resumed his seat. "All right, my friend. I don't want to appear greedy."

Sanjay smiled back. He was starting to like this fellow. He would have to watch that. "Then why not give me five?"

"Three percent. Say yes now, or I walk out that door and you'll never see me again."

"I think if that happens, my life will become dull once more. Three percent."

They shook hands on it. Then Sanjay settled back in his chair and asked, "It might be useful for me to know what it is that I am selling." He indicated the mollysphere shifting back and forth in Sanjay's hand. "Information, that much you have confirmed. But information about what?"

Taneer's smile evaporated faster than vodka at a Russian wedding. "Better that you don't know. You wouldn't understand the particulars.

There are not many people in the world who will. But there are enough." Ceremoniously, he placed the storage device on the desktop. "This is not a complete rendering of what it is I have to sell. But there is more than enough here to convince anyone sufficiently knowledge able who delves into the details to prove to them that I can deliver what is promised. The rest of the relevant material can and will be sup plied when the final details of the sale are worked out." His eyes met those of the shopkeeper. "I am telling the truth when I say to you that the less you know of it, the better. For both of us."

Sanjay shrugged as if he dealt with this level of commerce every day. "I am only to be your middleman. I must accept your instructions. You strike me as a truthful person."

Taneer rose from his seat. "I have ninety-seven percent of that figure at risk. I can afford to be." He nodded in the direction of the remote that controlled the shopkeeper's box. "May I access that?"

Sanjay hesitated. He disliked the idea of anyone else poking around in his personal system. Of course, if he was looking over the visitor's shoulder while the man worked…

"Certainly," he said graciously, as if it had never crossed his mind to refuse the request.

It was an education to watch his guest manipulate the familiar multiple floating projections. The man had the skill of a technician and the technique of an artist. Images and figures, schematics and solids appeared and dissolved within the hovering tunnel above his modest counter in a dizzying succession of colors and forms. When his visitor was finished, Sanjay was not even entirely sure what had been done, even though every bit of it had transpired before his eyes, on his own equipment.

Taneer explained it to him. "I've entered the necessary information into your secure database."

Eyeing him in disbelief, the shopkeeper checked the relevant file. The new material was there, just as his visitor claimed. It should not have been, but it was.

"How did you do that? Those files are personal, protected, and guarded."

Taneer just smiled. "Maybe one day I'll explain it to you, though it's not something you need to know. When our business together is finished, you won't need to know such things because you'll be able to hire someone like myself to do them for you."

"That is so," Sanjay realized. He studied the readout floating in the air before him. "When do you want me to start making inquiries?"

"Right away. The sooner a buyer is agreed upon, the better it will be for everyone concerned." Raising his left foot off the ground, Taneer indicated the heel of his shoe. "It may not appear so, but what I have been carrying around in my shoe is surprisingly heavy, and grows heavier by the day."

Sanjay dipped his head. "I will do my job, sir, and not fail you. Soon the only burden you will bow beneath is the weight of too much money."

They shook hands again. As Taneer was going out the door, he turned to leave one last thought in his wake. It should not have been necessary to say it, but even at his comparatively young age, he was not one to leave important matters unspoken.

"You'll mention this to no one else, of course. No one," he finished solemnly.

Sanjay's nod was brisk. "Not even to my most beloved wife. I know that it is difficult for a man to keep his wits about him if his head is removed from his shoulders."

"If the wrong people learn about this, they won't start with your head." Leaving that final warning hanging in the air, Taneer stepped back out into the heat and glare of midday. The usual afternoon mix of pedestrian and vehicular traffic soon swallowed him up.

Returning to his counter, Sanjay did not reactivate the "Open" sign on his shop front door, nor did he lighten his windows so passersby could look in and once more view his stock. Instead, he called up the information his visitor had somehow magically inserted into his personal files. None of the names were known to him. For the most part, the street addresses were equally unfamiliar. They lay in parts of the city that were alien to him: very high-rent commercial districts and blocks. Well, they would be known to him soon, he realized. Or at least to whomever he would engage to make the necessary representations. His own contact. The second intermediary, whose participation would pro vide the extra level of security his just-departed guest demanded.

No boxwork, Taneer had warned him. Nothing online to be traced. Everything had to be done in person. The old-fashioned way. Step back in time a couple of centuries, and then proceed.

Sitting behind his simple counter, visions of wealth and freedom dancing tantalizingly at the edge of his thoughts, Sanjay Ghosh set to work.

Depahli's gaze kept returning to the dancing, swaying numbers on the time-designated portion of the wall that had been implanted with the clock. It was as if they were following her around the apartment. They would have followed her around except that they had been programmed to remain in one place.

The men she was waiting for were late. That was not unexpected. Riots that sprang up like weeds, equipment failure, traffic jams in unexpected places, animals on the road, the loud and often violent settling of personal vendettas: all could and often did combine to slow the delivery of materials. In the case of her order, she had placed it in person, which was supposed to expedite such matters. Though she had lived with Taneer for nearly a year and paid close attention to his instructions, she was still comparatively new to working the box. She tended to look away from its scanner and not speak clearly in the direction of the vorec. It would take a while before she was as comfortable talking to a device as she was to another person.

The sensitive nature of her order had not intimidated her from shopping for it, or from dealing with the understanding female clerk at the other end of the connection. She could have placed it over her personal communicator as well as directly via the apartment box. But it was useful to be able to talk to someone knowledgeable about what she was buying. Receiving an explanation from another woman who had used it herself was better than reading about it on the box, or even viewing a full holo demonstration.

But if the delivery people didn't hurry, they would not be able to complete the installation in time, before she expected Taneer home. Everything would still function, but the surprise would be lost.

Though she was a naturally fast learner, the totality of her ignorance concerning things technological when she had first met Taneer had frequently left them both gasping with laughter. In truth, he had enjoyed teaching her as much as she had enjoyed being taught. Now, she could work everything in the unassuming apartment: the vit, the built-in kitchen, the mobile small appliances scattered throughout the four rooms, and she was learning more and more about how to operate the box. Circumscribed as her physical movements were, it was the safest window to the rest of the world. When she had successfully placed her first order, using the alternative, secured cash account Taneer had set up exclusively for her use, she had insisted on cele brating. Her man had found it amusing that she could get so excited over doing something that had been second-nature to him as a child.

He had not grown up a Dalit child, she had reminded him firmly.

A pleasant male voice broke into her reverie to announce that there was someone at the door. As she hoped, it was a pair of installers with her order. After verifying their identities, the building admitted them.

A second security check in the hallway proved equally routine. Moments later they were on the tenth floor and querying her door in person.

Though not Muslim, she wore a veil and modified abaya. With her beauty effectively concealed, she would not be a distraction to the two men. Not being Muslim themselves, neither thought to comment on the contradiction of a Muslim woman admitting two strange men into her home. Or perhaps they assumed that the male resident was close by.

They set about their work with a professionalism that put her at ease. Other than to query her about where she wished a certain component to be installed, or how she wanted another positioned, they went about their business in silence. Neither commented on the sensitive nature of the system she had purchased. No doubt they had per formed dozens, perhaps hundreds, of such installations and it was all strictly business to them.

When they had finished, they ran several of the system's embedded programs to make sure it was functioning properly. Watching these, Depahli found herself blushing beneath the veil. They paid not the slightest attention to her. It struck her then that perhaps they were eunuchs, or gay, and had no interest whatsoever in the details. Business, after all, was business.

The senior of the two workmen turned the system vorec over to her, spent a few moments instructing her on how to program it to recognize her voice, had her peer briefly into the unit that imprinted her retinal pattern onto the receipt, and bid her good day as he and his companion took their leave.

She experimented with the installation for the next hour, gradually becoming more comfortable with its individual eccentricities, learning how to customize it to her tastes. Taneer would do the same, of course-if she could just get him to relax. That was becoming harder and harder as the time for reestablishing contact with the outside world drew near. It was why she had purchased the system. If it couldn't relax him, it was likely nothing could.

When he finally arrived just before dark, after taking the usual random, circuitous route back to the apartment, he was tired but elated.

"I think we're on our way at last, Depa." Smiling, he put his arms around her and hugged her tight. "I think I've found just the right person to move this along."

"Finally!" For all her physical perfection, she still had to stand on tiptoes to kiss him. "I have a surprise for you."

His smile metamorphosed into a grin. "I know that smile, you little vixen, you. What have you been cooking up while I've been gone?"

Taking his hand, she drew him toward the kitchen. "Dinner first. After you've had your fill of my cooking, you'll see what I've been cooking up."

She had become adept at programming the kitchen, and providing it with the ingredients necessary for it to perform its magic. As befitted the occasion of the installation she had prepared a special, though not overbearing, meal. Her own special mulligatawny soup to start, then malai chingri-prawns in coconut milk. There was onion kulcha, or flat bread, on the side; a nice selection of ghonto-mixed vegetables; and a delightful assortment of momos-stuffed and steamed dumplings from Mizoram. For dessert, it had to be rosogulla-cottage cheese balls in pure sugar syrup.

They ate by simulated candlelight, Depahli having programmed the little kitchen's illumination unit accordingly.

Taneer drained the last of his iced tea, set the glass down on the simulated marble table with its slowly shifting patterns that simulated pietra dura, or inlaid semiprecious stone, and shook his head slowly as he gazed across at her. "What a marvel you are. If only I could find a way to make my family see that."

"Your family will roll in camel dung before they acknowledge me. I care nothing for their approval, but I wish that they would do so if only for your sake, to settle your mind," she shot back at him.

Rising, he came around the table and took her hand in his, easing her up from her chair. "My mind was long since settled on this matter," he murmured decisively. Then he kissed her. "When this is all over…"

Surprisingly, she pulled away from him, grinning wickedly. "Before it is over, you are going to have to learn to relax, or you'll have a heart attack before you can enjoy your money. Come with me."

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 together. Slightly slack-jawed, he watched the performance unfold. Abruptly it halted, and the glowing shades returned to their original positions.

"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 Kama Sutra as virtuals. Also The Ananga Ranga, but I thought we should start with something simple. Try again." She spoke to the vorec.

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.