Sagramanda, a Novel of Near-Future India

by Alan Dean Foster

  "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.

  *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.

  So while it was somewhat uncommon to see a single tourist perambulating by herself, it was hardly unprecedented. Fifty years or so earlier, she would have been an easy target for pickpockets or muggers. But like every other tourist site in Sagramanda, the dense accumulation of shops and stores around the old temple was peppered with concealed monitors and camouflaged sensors. Perpetrators might success fully commit a crime in its vicinity, but they were unlikely to get away with it.

  Those denizens of the immediate, overcrowded neighborhood who did happen to glance into the face of the long-legged visitor might have had second thoughts about her origin. Though her features were European, her skin was darker than that of many locals. Furthermore, she made her way with complete confidence, expressing no disgust or outrage at the lingering puddles of urine or accumulated piles of rubbish she effortlessly avoided. In the midst of filth, she showed no emotion whatsoever. That was unlike the typical tourist.

  The small open area that fronted the temple, a miniature plaza nearly roofed over by the porches and overhangs of the buildings that surrounded it, was much cleaner. The priests kept it so, picking up any intruding trash and regularly sweeping the large squares of stained white paving stones. It was a tiny place, almost claustrophobic. Even though this was the principal temple to the goddess Kali in all of India, one could miss it by a single street without knowing it was there.

  Neither was the building itself imposing. Wide white stone stairs led up to a single wraparound deck that in turn surrounded the inner temple. Clad in simple green and white tiles, the old dome overhead was no bigger than that of a country church in the south of France. Perhaps only the bright, bloodred paint that covered the external pillars hinted at the presence inside of the unusual.

  From some locations on the diminutive square it was almost impossible to see the temple through the maze of fiber optic cables, power lines, illegal boxline taps, and other wires that crisscrossed the restricted open space. It was as if the temple had been encased in a gigantic web of brown and silver silk spun by unseen spiders. Vendors of fruit and flowers, incense, and small souvenirs for the faithful occupied every crack of an alcove, every semisheltered niche. Especially flowers, as these were bought to be cast to the image of the goddess during prayer. Red flowers were especially popular; natural color if possible, dyed if one could not afford the real thing. Even more than the constant babble in multiple languages, the clash of odors was stunning to the senses: stale urine and powerful disinfectant, fresh roses and decomposing offal.

  None of it appeared to affect, much less faze, the woman dressed in the half sari and loose cotton pants. Approaching the temple, she touched a button on the haft of the umbrella that had been shielding her from both sun and rain, collapsing and automatically furling the portable protective canopy. The two short, dark men who had had their eyes on her ever since she had entered the temple square exchanged a few mumbled words and moved on. What had at first glance seemed a possible easy target was on reflection entirely too familiar with her surroundings. They decided to look elsewhere for a victim.

  They never knew that was the best decision they were to make all day.

  Ignoring the imploring, singsong din of the many vendors packed tighter than sardines along the alleyway, Jena climbed the temple steps as deliberately as she had many times before. At the top, she found her self confronted by a priest. A new man, one who did not know her. His smile was wide, inviting, and phony.

  "Memsahib has come to see the temple of Kali?" Without waiting for a reply, he continued, "I am Nusad, and I would be happy to be your guide."

  She started to brush him off, then had a wicked thought. She was in no hurry, and could use a little entertainment. Looking around, she saw no one she recognized, either in the temple or on the small square it fronted. That was not surprising. Like many temples, this one rotated priests and acolytes frequently. That suited her fine. She did not want anyone to recognize her, either.

  So she said, in English, "Very nice to meet you, Nusad. Yes, you may show me the temple."

  She took the standard tour. It was interesting to see what was shown to and what was kept hidden from the tourists these days. She overpaid for the devotional flowers at the shop the priest led her to, wondering what percentage comprised his personal kickback. She listened to his rehearsed history of Hindu mythology. The greatly condensed version, suitable for ignorant foreigners. Only when he led her inside to the flower-draped, incense-surrounded statue of Mother Kali did her attitude change.

  The self-assured young priest did not notice the subtle shift. He was too engrossed in his spiel. "This is how you pray," he was telling her. "First you throw the flowers you are carrying to-"

  She turned on him so sharply it broke his train of thought. "I know how to pray," she informed him tautly. Turning away from him, she approached the statue and reached toward it. No other priests or visitors were around.

  "Here, memsahib, you can't do-"

  She snapped at him. In Hindi. And again, for good measure, in Bengali. The look on his face was priceless, worth having to endure the preceding ten minutes of touristy babble. Turning back to the statue, she did not throw but placed her offering at the goddess's feet. Straightening, she steepled her hands together before her face, palms together, fingers pointing upward, lowered her head, and began to whisper in Hindi.

  The stunned priest could only stand by, open-mouthed, listening. This was something he had never seen before. A white person who knew
the proper words. And there was more, much more, embedded in the prayer. Indisputably, improbably, the foreign woman was praying in earnest and not for show. Some of what she was saying would have made the hair stand up on his head, were it not cleanshaven.

  The words that he managed to catch had something to do with a late-night commuter train. A businessman, traveling home. Him get ting off at a commuter nexus in a well-off suburb. Being followed. Somewhere between train and house being stabbed in the back, several times, blood pouring out to darken his high-collared white coat.

  Fantasy, of course. Homicidal make-believe. The shaken priest had heard of such things but had never encountered it before in person.

  Wish-fulfillment. The foreign woman had a fertile, if horrific, imagination. She had everything, in fact, to complete the illusion she was trying so hard to craft except the requisite severed head of a demon clutched in her right hand. He almost expected her to break into the appropriate dance-and was half afraid that she might. If it was a certain, specific kind of dance, it might drop him to his knees. Thank fully, she did not commence anything so disconcerting.

  Concluding her prayers, she turned to leave. Her eyes were shining; some of it was due to devotion, some to the lingering effects of a hefty morning dose of rapture-4. Taken together, it was enough to cause the now thoroughly unsettled priest to step quickly out of her way. He retreated until he was backed up against the temple wall. The colors of her half-Western, half-Indian raiment had not registered on him until now: black and red.

  She turned to him in passing, her face alight, her eyes burning. The two of them were alone on the isolated segment of wraparound porch. "Thank you for the tour, priest. Aren't you going to harangue me until, out of guilt or fear, I consent to contribute an excessive dona tion to 'the upkeep of the temple'?"

  He shook his head slowly, unable to tear his eyes away from that mesmerizing gaze.

  She smiled. "Well, don't worry. I always make one." Reaching into her shoulder bag and using her right hand, she removed not money, but a small knife. It looked like a miniature Tibetan phurpa, but he couldn't be sure. Still smiling at him, she extended the tiny but ultra-sharp blade and drew the cutting edge across the back of her right hand, deftly avoiding the tendons. Droplets of bright red blood began to drip onto the temple floor. Reaching out, never taking her eyes from his, she fingered up a fold of his robe and used it to wipe the blade clean. Pressing the back of her hand to her mouth, she sucked at the self-inflicted wound. It was then that the priest noticed the framing network of scars. They covered the back of her hand and extended, like the ghosts of worms, all the way up her forearm until they disappeared beneath the sleeve of her sari top.

  "My donation," she whispered. Moving closer, she added, "Don't call me 'memsahib.' I am Devi Jena. And this is your Shakti for the day. May it inspire you in the faith." Then, before he could escape to either side, she kissed him, full on the mouth. Amid the hot pressure he tasted salt and blood.

  Then she was gone, around the corner of the temple and down the stairs, a swirl of hair and silk that was swallowed up by the milling, noisy crowd.

  He didn't tell anyone about the encounter. How could he? No one would believe him. To the end of his days, he never forgot it.

  It would have been better for some still alive if he had been both more worldly and more secular, and had gone to the police.

  It was not surprising that the air-conditioning in the museum always worked. Tourist dollars were irreplaceable. Tourism was not only a business whose benefits were spread among many, it was a comparatively clean industry. In a city like Sagramanda, locked in an eternal and it sometimes seemed eternally losing battle with every imaginable kind of pollution, that was important.

  Even more important than ensuring that the air-conditioning functioned properly at major tourist sites, however, was ensuring that the tourists did. Finding murdered ones floating in the Hooghly and gnawed by the fishes was even worse for business than poor climate control.

  Among the few effects found on the body of the waterlogged, dead Australian woman was a ticket stub. Though tourist sites had long since advanced beyond the need to issue such antiquated shards of admittance, they continued to do so because visitors insisted on receiving them. They made excellent mementos. To enhance their keepsake value, many years ago government as well as privately operated sites had taken to issuing permanent plastic souvenir tickets.

  Though dirty and scratched, the one that had been extracted from a pocket of the dead tourist's pants indicated that she, at least, had visited the museum on a certain day and at a certain time. Ascertaining that several members of the museum staff who had been on duty the day of her visit were on duty today, Keshu had determined to pay a visit to the venerable old mausoleum himself. On this visit he was attended to and assisted by one Corporal Bubaneesaywayti. Americans, at least, would have been amused to know that the dour junior officer was usually referred to by friends and colleagues alike as Corporal Bubba: a regional reference as out of place in Sagramanda as saag bhaji would have been in St. Louis.

  The outside of the massive pile of stone and concrete never failed to impress: an elaborate amalgamation of Victorian British design and Indian workmanship. The interior offered more of the same, though recent renovations tended to conceal the least practical aspects of nineteenth-century architectural design.

  The museum boasted a wealth of artifacts relating to the history of the country. Glittering howdahs that had once borne magnificently mustachioed maharajahs from affairs of state to elaborate durbar dinners. Ornate costumes of silk and silver, gold thread and strung pearls-some even intended to be worn by women. Ranks of damascened spears, swords, knives, pikes, and other assorted martial cutlery. Armor for men, armor for horses, armor (most impressively of all) for war elephants. Exquisite miniatures of ivory and carved gemstone. The back side of one favored maharani's hand mirror that had been fashioned from a single slice of pale sapphire.

  Wandering through the high-ceilinged halls, Keshu found himself more taken with the displays of artifacts from everyday life. Many of these were overlaid with virtuals, much as in the old days painted plastic overlays were used in books to teach everything from human

  anatomy to archeology. Nowadays layers of reality were cloaked in virtuals, which were not only more realistic and capable of movement but which could be changed with the touch of a finger on a control or the application of a suitable program.

  Inspector and corporal passed by, and through, villagers working the massive brick kilns of ancient Mohenjo-daro. They questioned guides and guards as virtual laborers toiled to build the Taj Mahal beneath the sorrowful gaze of a virtual Shah Jahan. As they queried a ticket-taker for a special exhibition, carefully modulated concealed speakers accompanied the recycling and untiring charge of the invaders from the north who had given rise to the empire of the Mughals. The rampaging imagery was inspiring, though Keshu thought the volume needed to be turned up.

  Corporal Bubba was more taken with the display that chronicled the history of Bollywood films; especially the enticing virtuals of famous stars of the past. Many who had never appeared on screen together sang and danced their favorite numbers in tandem. Through the magic of virtuals and programming, famous faces (and figures) from different eras of entertainment were able to interact seamlessly with one another.

  So much history, Keshu thought as he and his assistant trudged onward, questioning every employee they encountered, even the temps. A world unto itself, India was. His world.

  Once, he had attended a conference of his peers in Tokyo. Another world unto itself. The conference had been held in a hotel built in the shape of two giant half-moons that faced one another and were bound together by a network of stainless steel strands. At night, thousands of LEDs embedded in the cables lit up in a light show unlike anything he had ever seen before.

  The hotel and conference center had been constructed on shallow land reclaimed from Tokyo Bay. On his last day, there
had been an earthquake. A minor one, hardly strong enough to cause the hotel staff and his Japanese hosts to pause in their work. Boarding the sky

  cruiser for the supersonic trip back home, a shaken Keshu had vowed never to leave Sagramanda again. Or, at least, India. Some things that were homegrown simply could not be transplanted, he realized.

  "Haa, I remember them."

  "What?" His thoughts still on the terrifying moment when the Earth had shuddered beneath him, the inspector had to pull himself back to the moment.

  Corporal Bubba leaned close. "He says he remembers them, sir."

  Keshu refocused on the guard. The man was very old; perhaps as old as some of the static exhibits now relegated to the rear, less-visited corridors of the museum complex. But his memory of matters recent, it developed, was sharp and clear.

  He was holding the display spindle Bubba had handed him. A third of a meter long and the thickness of the corporal's thumb, it was currently enveloped in a holoed projection of the two dead tourists. Its operation was simple enough for anyone to operate. Press the button at the top of the spindle to turn on and off, press one of two buttons on the bottom to zoom in or out. Rotating the spindle in one's fingers caused the projected image to rotate with it.

  The old man pushed a finger into the face of the dead Australian man. While the images had been enhanced by forensics reconstructors, the pro gram's effectiveness had been undermined by the fact that both bodies had been hauled out of the river in the first stages of decomposition.

  "You're sure?" Keshu prompted the guard, all thoughts of distant and unstable Japan now banished from his mind.

  The senior nodded. He had a long, somber face lined with more channels than the Brahmaputra, wide eyes that seemed on the verge of weeping, a nose sharp enough to cut nonsense, and a deferential manner. But he was certain of what he had seen.

  "I have been a guard's assistant and full guard here for forty years," he declared formally. "I have a good eye for people and have caught many thieves." Once again he pushed an identifying finger into the holo, this time into the face of the dead woman. "I remember these two as clearly as I remember everyone."