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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
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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 program'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
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