The Stars Change Page 5

She had offered, once, to pay for Amara to have some genetic work done. Narita couldn't actually afford that yet, especially since modding adults was so much more expensive than modding sperm, eggs, and blastocysts, but she could talk her mother into it. Probably. At least a little bit—some basic mods to avoid life-threatening diseases, at least. It terrified Narita, knowing that Amara could be carried off by something as simple as the flu. So she had offered to pay for the mods, the same way she'd offered to pay for their celebratory graduation night out the previous month. But Amara had refused, quietly but firmly. She also refused to explain why; Narita still didn't know whether Amara's objections had to do with money, or religion, or something else entirely.

  They'd been dating for less than a year—maybe Amara would change her mind down the road. In several years, Narita would be a doctor, making enough money of her own to pay for the procedures; she couldn't touch her inheritance until she was thirty, but she wouldn't need to. She could talk Amara into it then, if they were still together. And she wanted them to stay together, she did. Narita still couldn't explain it to her friends—in fact, she barely saw most of her old friends, these days. It wasn't comfortable, spending time with them and with Amara together. But she didn't need them. All she wanted was Amara, all the time.

  Even now—Amara was repulsive in this moment. Ugly. And yet her weakness engendered a strange protectiveness in Narita. At this impossible moment, desire rose up alongside revulsion, and Narita wanted nothing more than to kiss Amara speechless. She doubted her girlfriend would take kindly to any advances right now, though. So instead, Narita paced back and forth in the apartment that seemed suddenly too small, fighting a rising tide of desire and frustration.

  It would be another year before Narita asked Amara to partner, to have a child with her, but she had spent nine years looking back, analyzing their relationship. Chieri said it was that night, when Amara was so sick, that Narita had decided she wanted to spend her life with her. Chieri was usually right about such things. It was part of her job.

  Her steps hadn't taken her home, to her apartment full of guests. Something in the back of her brain had turned her around, and now she was headed down Atrena, towards Iskander Road. Narita had ended up on the edge of the Warren, which was a stupid place to be tonight, and she was too smart to be so stupid. There was only one reason to be down here, a reason that had nothing to do with buying fresh fruits and vegetables, and what were the odds that Chieri would be out on a night like tonight anyway? Sitting in her window with her dark hair falling loose, long legs hanging over the side, wrapped in a see-through slip that was designed to tear off with a fingertip of pressure—oh, Narita remembered the first time she'd seen Chieri sitting there, the first time she'd followed a beckoning finger inside. Nine years ago, raw and aching. It had been worth a week's salary to bury herself in Chieri's body for a night and forget, forget the woman who had rejected her. The woman who had finally come back.

  Tonight, her body didn't feel like her own anymore. Not since Amara walked in her door, and the sudden desire flared through her. As if the past ten years hadn't happened, as if they were still twenty, young and ignorant and bursting with life. Amara looked different now—older, more tired. Wrinkles at the corners of her eyes already; Narita wouldn't wrinkle for decades to come, not if her parents and the gene specialists had done their job right. Narita knew that she must look like a ghost of the past to Amara, virtually unchanged since the day she'd walked away, and perhaps it was petty of her to be pleased by that. Good—let Amara look old and haggard, let her be jealous of how good Narita still looked! And if all Narita wanted to do was wrap her ex-girlfriend in her arms and drag her off to bed—well, she didn't have to let Amara know it.

  While Narita had busied herself helping as best she could with the birth of Jequith's child, Amara had huddled in a chair. There was too much chaos in those moments for them to talk, and Narita was glad for the distraction. As soon as the new family was settled, warm and clean and wrapped up entirely in each other, Narita had grabbed her mesh shopping bag and headed out the door. Oh, they could have managed on what was in the pantry, and fine, maybe that would have been smarter, on a night like tonight. The truth was that if she stayed in the apartment, she would have to talk to Amara, and that was one thing she didn't want to do. She didn't even want to see her face. Except she did, she did—Narita wanted to trace every line, every wrinkle on that face with her fingertips—and that was the problem, and that was why she was out the door on this strangely freezing night, shivering and stomping her way down the road. To the market, and then here.

  There was the house, so discreet, tucked back from the street like all the others on Iskander Road, front gardens carefully tended, walls well-dressed in sober, rich colors. If you didn't know better, you would assume doctors lived here, or businessfolk. If you didn't see the sacred star that hung from each door, seven-pointed and shining gently in the night. A different branch of Hinduism than the one Amara’s family followed—Chieri would say, an older one. There were a thousand tributaries from that stream, some of which you could barely call Hinduism at all, and if one was older than the other, only the scholars bothered to argue about it now. The sacred star promised music and dance, comfort and ecstasy, whatever your heart most needed, offered to you by the devadasis, in the service of their gods.

  Offered for a price, of course—salvation doesn't come for free, and the temple and its grounds were in endless need of attention. But Narita would never say Chieri didn't earn her pay, not that first night, nor all the ones after. Three thousand years the devadasis had been offering their worship, first on old Earth, and then here; they'd had plenty of time to refine their craft into something quite astonishing. When you visited a devadasi, ecstasy was guaranteed—at least for a few hours.

  She and Chieri had become friends, eventually. Friends enough that Chieri could ask her, under cover of darkness in the early hours of the morning, why Narita kept coming back, month after month and year after year; it wasn't as if she needed to pay for love. Narita kissed Chieri's mouth closed, rather than give her the real answer—that it was better to pay for it. Safer. This way, no one's heart was at risk. No one could be abandoned and betrayed.

  Chieri's windows were closed tonight, and the star on her door was dark. She wasn't open for business, or she was already otherwise occupied. Narita should leave her alone, but instead, she found herself standing in front of the door, banging on it. Bang! Bang! Bang! An unsettling echo of earlier events. How many people tonight were running from one door to another, searching for comfort in the encroaching dark?

  God, it was cold. And raining again, bitter rain that slanted through the night with increasing force. No answer at the door, and finally, Narita had to turn away, admit that there was nothing here for her, no help. She would have to go back. And in that turning, she saw them. Amara, on the road behind her—what was she doing here? Had she followed Narita all this way? Narita’s heart, irritatingly, thumped. And ahead, at the cross street, Chieri, inhumanly beautiful as always, wrapped in a thick, warm cloak. And finally, further up the road, a strange saurian—short and heavy and dressed in a campus guard uniform. All of them converging on her. One, two, three breaths, and they were upon her, meeting at Chieri's doorstep. Narita didn't know what to say to any of them. Thankfully, Chieri took care of that for her.

  "Well," she said, looking around at the small, silent circle. "I suppose you're wondering why I've called you all here tonight." It was said dryly enough, but no one laughed, or even smiled. Not tonight. Chieri shrugged. "You'd better come inside."

  In the House of God

  Amara followed the others inside the star-marked house—the lizard-man, Narita, and the sacred dancer. She kept her distance, a few feet behind, and by the time she crossed the threshold, they were already through the foyer and had entered a room on the far side. Which was just as well, because Amara took one step inside, letting the door swing shut behind her, and then stopped, stunned.
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  The interior was beautiful. That was the only word for it. Well, that and luxurious, impressive, glorious, expensive. Maybe expensive most of all, because even though every element—the floors, the walls, the curving staircase—was in impeccably good taste, the materials used were higher quality than Amara had ever seen outside a holo. Imported marble, rare woods, shining platinum. Her entire bedroom would fit in this space, with room to spare—and this was just the foyer. It wasn't what she'd expected, from a devadasi's home. She hadn't really known what to expect.

  Amara had entered knowing what kind of house this was, trying to be respectful, despite the pit of jealousy churning in her stomach. The woman's profession was holy, even if it wasn’t Amara's own religion. Not that Amara had much of a religion anymore—she kept searching, reading, studying, even after she'd finished at university. But the belief that had seemed so easy as a child had died the day her father left; all her searching hadn't revived it. Her parents would never have entered a house like this, but they had always insisted on the importance of respecting others' religious traditions. We all come to God in different ways, rasathi, her mother had said. Well, Uma used to say that. In the old days, before Amara's father had left them.

  As a teen, Amara had found her parents' broad-mindedness frustrating. All the ways can't be the right way, she had insisted. Some of them contradict each other. Her parents would just look at each other and laugh in that annoying way they had, as if they were reading each others' minds. An intimacy so sweet and powerful, it left everybody else out. Sometimes, Amara felt like she could feel her spine stiffening in sheer irritation.

  If she had known then that just a few years later, her father would walk away, would she have treasured that parental closeness? Not that she could have possibly predicted that Dayan would, on Amara's acceptance to university, announce that he was done as householder and father, free to go out into the wilderness and seek God. None of them saw that coming—not even, to his credit, Dayan himself. She had to believe that. That sometimes lives were shattered by bolts that arrived unexpectedly, falling from a clear blue sky.

  A dozen years ago, that night. Sitting on the hall stairs, listening to her parents' low voices, a room away.

  "Why now, kunju? Her mother, pleading. "You still have work to do at the temple, and after that, you will have many years to enjoy as retiree, to spend with your children, your grandchildren." Amara's elder sisters already had prodigious broods, six and seven children each, respectively. "It is not time to take up the renunciate's path. Not yet."

  Her father's voice was thick. "Uma, I am sorry, believe me. If I could take you and the children with me, I would. But my heart tells me that I must have solitude to find the path."

  Her mother was silent for a long time, exhausted by the hours of struggle. Amara and her sisters had been present for much of it, the long day's arguments. With nightfall, her sisters had gone home, and Amara had gone upstairs. She had tried to sleep. But grief burned in her chest, and she eventually crept down the stairs again, to sit on the bottom step and, like a small child, try to overhear her parents' conversation.

  Uma said, finally, "Do you have to go so far?" The pain in her voice could break a daughter's heart.

  Amara had wondered about this too. There were retreats on-world, many of them. There were many religions that recommended time away from the cares of the everyday world, and a seeker could choose from ashrams in field and forest, over and under sea, in fertile jungle or desolate desert. Even on a solitary mountaintop, if you so desired. You could go, for a time, and then come home. You could have visitors.

  Very few made Dayan's choice. To go up, up, up to the stars, sealed in a tiny tin box, hooked up to machines and kept alive for weeks, months, years at a time. So that there was nothing to do, nothing one could do, except contemplate the empty universe, the face of God.

  "I have very far to go, my dear," was all her husband said in reply.

  Amara knew, when she heard him say those words, that it didn't matter what else her mother said that night. Dayan was going, and Uma was going to let him.

  Maybe that was why Amara had married Rajiv. There were many reasons. The most obvious was because Amara was angry. She couldn't marry the woman she wanted, not without crossing lines no one in her family had ever crossed. She knew how her mother would feel, if Amara married a woman from one of those families. Uma was the pandit’s wife, co-leader of their community, enmeshed in her people’s everyday lives and difficulties. She would never be comfortable with Narita's people, with their wealth and oh-so-considered kindness. If Amara married Narita, she would be leaving her own world and entering another. Leaving her mother behind. Her father had done that to Uma already; Amara couldn't be the one to break her mother's heart again.

  So she was angry. Twenty years old, that anger turned into spite. Amara asked Uma to arrange her marriage, and then married the right kind of man—not rich, but with a steady job. Educated, intelligent, someone's who'd worked hard and made a solid place for himself in the world. The kind of man her mother approved of. But, angry, Amara made the wrong kind of marriage. Uma was shocked by Amara's decision to pledge life marriage, such a heedless, immoderate choice. No one in their family had pledged life marriage in generations—not since her many-great grandparents had left Earth in their own tiny metal ship. It was the sort of thing adolescents might dream about, viewing historical holovids, but no one actually did anymore. Life marriage was as foolish as not keeping your own credit account, or giving up your own name. Archaic, romantic, ridiculous.

  Why had she done it? Amara didn't really know. Maybe because she'd always loved old things, old ways. Maybe because Amara wanted what her parents had had, once upon a time. Most likely, she'd harassed Rajiv into agreeing to life marriage so she could pretend that they really were bound forever. Soulmates. She'd married him for life, so that her husband would never leave her.

  After announcing his intentions, her father had waited two more months, until the end of his sixth five-year term of marriage. Thirty years, three daughters, thirteen grandchildren. And then Dayan had simply not renewed his marriage, left his wife to lead their congregation, dissolved all his personal savings to pay for the ship, and walked away from them all. Flew.

  It had all seemed to make sense at the time, when she had gone to her mother and asked to have her marriage arranged, had insisted on a life marriage. But now, all those reasons dissipated like dust on the breeze. Maybe the truth was simpler; Amara had run away from Narita because she was afraid. Had run straight to Rajiv and locked herself into that marriage, strapped as tightly as her father in his little tin ship. Tighter. Because her father had broken his promises—not explicit vows of marriage, perhaps, but implicit promises. I love you now, and tomorrow, and all the days after. He had broken his promises to his wife, his daughters, and so Amara couldn't break a promise. Not ever. She had sworn life marriage, and trapped herself. Mistake piled on mistake; calamity leading to catastrophe. An endless empty desolation.

  Until war was declared, and missiles streaked overhead, and Rajiv confessed that he had shattered the bonds of their marriage. The tubes that had been inserted into her arteries and veins, binding her in place, were now ripped out and dripping strange fluids. Oh, she wasn't making sense, not even in her own head, but did that matter on a night like this? Amara was free, she could go anywhere. She had nowhere to go.

  Her father's ship was still up there, somewhere in the space between the stars, searching for god. Amara checked in on the news, as she’d been doing periodically, obsessively, since the announcement came—still quiet up there, nothing more since that first rocket, which they were now saying had been ground-based. So far, there were no explosions in space, and even if there were, it was vanishingly unlikely that a missile would happen across his particular point in space. Unlikely, but possible. Should she worry for her father? Should she grieve?

  Amara shook her head, casting away ragged memories. She had enough to worry ab
out now, in this moment—no need to dwell on the wounds of the past. In this room, envy joined jealousy in the battle for her heart; it wasn't fair, that Amara had to compete with all this splendor. If the woman's house was this beautiful, what must she be like? Amara had avoided looking at the woman. But now, against her will, she was imagining Narita here. Had her ex-girlfriend lain naked on the Persian rug in the foyer, pale brown skin against a thousand shades of red? The rug looked ancient, as if it had come all the way from old Earth, after being woven by skilled human hands. Amara was sure it hadn't just been extruded from the assembler last week.

  The others were already sitting down in the living room, but Amara could not bring herself to cross the hall towards them. She stood frozen on the antique rug, hating herself. She should have stayed at the apartment. Of course she had known Narita didn't want to talk to her, but Amara couldn't bear to stay with the aliens. She had to deal with occasional aliens at work, but at work they came, shuffled up in the queue, filled out their forms, and shuffled away again. And the air filters at work were good.

  It was different being alone with them, trapped in a tiny apartment, the acrid scent of them filling the place. It didn't help that the neuter's hand was never far from that sharp carving knife it wore. Amara's skin was crawling within moments of Narita's departure for the market, even though she knew she should be more open-minded, more accepting. She wanted to be better. But when the neuter squatted near its child and squirted a stream of goo from its mouth over the child's skin, that was just too much.

  Amara didn't know what it was doing, and she didn't care—she had bolted out the door, swallowing hard to keep the last sad remnants of her dinner in her stomach. She'd given praise to all the gods that she could still see Narita striding with her long legs down the street, two blocks away already and almost out of sight. She'd followed Narita down a maze of streets, to the market and then down Iskander Road, wondering where she was going. Amara had never come down this way before; it wasn't the sort of place her people went. She'd never have expected Narita to come to a place like this. How long had Narita been seeing this woman? Was it purely a business relationship, or something more?