No stranger to holographic characters, Patrick Stewart had the privilege of talking with one of the greats of science fiction by way of advanced three-dimensional communications technology.

Sir Arthur C. Clarke, author of "2001: A Space Odyssey," was honored Thursday night at a gala dinner hosted by the Space Frontier Foundation and emceed by Stewart. But since the mostly wheelchair-bound 83-year-old virtually never travels, he appeared from his home in Sri Lanka using a new three-dimensional hologram technology developed by Teleportec, according to Daily Variety.

"We are talking with you via some of the most advanced, elaborate and extensively expensive technical equipment ever installed," Stewart said to the guest of honor of the system being demonstrated publicly for the first time. "So tell us, what's the weather like there?"

Stewart noted that Clarke was experiencing an innovation that he had anticipated years before. But Clarke bragged that the kind of "teleportation" he had conceived in his story "Travel by Wire" in 1937 was "considerably more advanced." Stewart said, "Arthur, it sounds a little as though you're describing being transported, or 'beamed' as someone once put it." "Definitely beam me up Scotty, absolutely," Clarke responded with a chuckle.

A video presentation of the event, including Stewart's conversation with Clarke — as well as his introductory speech where he is interrupted by the HAL 9000 computer — is available for viewing at EarthShipTV. (Instructions: From the main EarthShipTV screen, click "Lowband" or "Broadband". In the video window that pops up, click on the picture of HAL [the red circle] in the middle. A picture of Clarke will appear; wait a few moments for the video to load. You may enter the video in mid-stream.)

Stewart, who considers Clarke a hero and a friend, took over hosting duties from Larry King, who was the originally scheduled emcee. In the EarthShipTV video, Stewart tells a reporter that he and his wife Wendy Neuss plan to take Clarke up on an invitation to visit Sri Lanka and go diving with him.

The fundraising gala took place at the Playboy Mansion in Los Angeles, where arriving guests witnessed the "Dawn of Man" as they passed a model of the famed monolith from the film "2001" that Clarke co-wrote with Stanley Kubrick, and were greeted (and sometimes frightened) by people in ape suits waving bones. Other speakers at the dinner included writer/director James Cameron, actor Morgan Freeman, former astronauts Jim Lovell and Buzz Aldrin, and SETI pioneer Frank Drake.