The Stars Change

by Mary Anne Mohanraj

  He should have known better. Maybe if Rajiv had joined a line-marriage or a clan-marriage, he would have done a better job of it.

  And now he was standing here, facing the intricate patterns of Kali’s Gate in this underground corridor, insulated from the storm overhead. It was eerily quiet here, as the little man with the hand-held pump knelt at a vent, pumping sleeping gas slowly throughout the lower levels. They all wore masks, the whole crowd that Amara had somehow gathered—old men and women along with young, her mother Uma, a cluster of scantily-dressed devadasis, and two aliens—one reptilian, the other feline. A motley crew in their silence and their masks, but even the masks couldn't hide how closely Amara and the woman Narita stood together. Moving in sync. There was something there, and Rajiv was pretty sure he knew exactly what it was. The funny thing was, more than anything, it was a relief.

  He had been feeling horribly guilty all night; that was what had dragged him from his comfortable study, through the erupting streets. Someone had thrown a bottle at him, and while it had hit the brick wall instead of his head, the exploding shards had cut his face. Narita had treated the wounds quickly, professionally, when he arrived; only his clothes were bloody now.

  Then Amara had gestured at the door lock, and Rajiv had reached out with an only slightly shaking palm.

  They’d broken through the deeper security system somehow; Kali’s Gate was unlocked, apparently, giving them access to the deepest levels of the building. They hadn’t actually opened it yet, just in case opening the Gate would set off an alarm. But the alien, Kimsriyalani, claimed it would open for them now.

  Rajiv would have been no use to them with the Gate. But they’d needed to get through the upper doors first, the blast doors that shut off the tunnels to the classrooms in case of emergency. Their computer wizard had said it would take too long to hack through them, but any faculty member could easily open those doors. It had been almost four-thirty in the morning, and so Amara had called him. Her husband. Soon to be ex-husband. And Rajiv had come, stomach churning, head aching and bloodied. He had come for her. He’d opened all the doors.

  Narita was speaking softly to Amara. “You’re sure you don’t want to call Jequith, ask it to come join us? It would be a formidable fighter, and there’s no guarantee the gas will work. We may still have to fight.”

  Amara shook her head wearily. “It just had a baby, and its mate is still injured, healing. I can’t bear to ask it to leave its family, not tonight. You understand.”

  Narita nodded, seeming relieved. They’d barely spoken since he’d arrived, but there was a connection between the two women, thrumming, electric. Rajiv felt a flash of arousal, accompanied by regret. Their lives might have gone so differently, if he had made different choices. Or maybe that was arrogance, to think that. Maybe this was never about him at all.

  Narita stepped away to speak to one of the old women, leaving a little space where Rajiv and Amara might talk with a semblance of privacy.

  "You can go home now," Amara said to him softly, over the hiss of the pump. She met Rajiv’s eyes squarely—she wasn't embarrassed to have left her husband, clearly. But she didn't seem angry either, which surprised him. "Thank you for your help."

  "Do you think so little of me?" Rajiv was surprised to find that it hurt.

  She hesitated, then said, "I just—I hated to call on you for a favor."

  "This isn't for you, or about you," he said quietly. That was mostly true. Rajiv would have come for her, if she'd called, for the decade of marriage, for the vows he’d taken, and broken. But this was bigger than that, bigger than all of them.

  She smiled thinly. "You're a professor, not a fighter."

  "And these people are fighters?" He gestured to the gathered crowd, a few steps away, but undoubtedly listening to every soft-spoken word between them. Let them listen. "Besides—this is my city, my university. Some of my students live in the Warren." His voice had raised on those words, involuntarily.

  Rajiv remembered his father, the physics professor, so angry that his son was going into English instead. Bad enough that English had become the lingua franca of the human race among the stars—worse, that his Tamil son would deliberately choose to embrace it. His father had never, not till the day he died, understood Rajiv's love for the language and its literature. But his father had loved the students too. If Amara's call had come for his father, the old man would have been right beside her, on the barricades, shaking his cane and shouting defiance.

  Not that any of them were shouting here. This was the quietest battle Rajiv had ever heard of. Amara was still gazing at him, eyes steady on his. He said softly, "I have a responsibility here. And besides—there might be more doors beyond the gate."

  She nodded then, accepting his place among them. Rajiv shivered. The truth was, in the pit of his stomach, he did long to be home, wrapped in an old afghan his mother had crocheted when he was a boy, huddled beside the fire, safe and alone. But there were children to be protected tonight. He’d always hoped to have children someday.

  "We're ready," the man by the pump said into the silence. "I've given them everything we have. Either they're asleep or they're not—no way to tell but by going down to see."

  Amara took a deep breath, and Rajiv realized that his wife was trembling. She was not so untouched by this night as she had seemed. He reached out then, gripped Amara's shoulder with a reassuring hand. If he could, he would hold her up for this.

  Amara reached up and clasped his hand with hers. It felt like an apology and forgiveness, wrapped in one. Just for a moment, and then she released his hand and was gone, moving away into the crowd. They all gathered themselves, silently, as planned. The devadasis in front, ready to charm any who might still be awake inside. Then the strongest amongst them, ready to fight if need be. And the rest, Rajiv among them, a final, desperate rear-guard.

  If they lived to see the morning, he would have his mother call the matchmaker again. Amma didn't even know his wife had left him, and he'd have to convince her that it wasn't too soon to start looking for a new wife—or wives. With husbands, even—Rajiv realized, surprised, that he didn't care what kind of marriage he ended up in. He just wanted to be a father. When life was this uncertain, better not to hesitate. He had waited long enough.

  Amara gave the signal; Narita stepped forward and pushed the intricate wrought metal. The Gate, silently, swung open.

  Dragons Fall

  Gaurav had expected it to be harder. They all had. They were amateurs, after all—technically, he was a cop, but he had never trained for, never faced anything like this. But the scene they walked into proclaimed that these would-be conspirators weren't professionals either.

  They slumped over computer desks, lolled back on chairs, lay outright on the floor. The gas would have worked quickly, and evidence of that lay all around—spilled chai, scattered flimsies. One man had a bloody nose. They were all asleep. Well, not for long.

  Gaurav didn't even need to direct the civilians. They were moving quickly, pulling out lengths of rope from their pockets, tying hands neatly behind the conspirators' backs. He watched, counting. Six. That's all there were—six of them, in casual clothes from the back of beyond. Dhotis and sarongs; old-fashioned button-down shirts. Only one of them dressed more formally, in embroidered salwar kameez. That one had been standing before he fell, in the center of the room. Watching them all, no doubt. That one was the leader.

  "Fuck—they had over a hundred of these things rigged up," Kimsriyalani muttered. She was moving quickly from computer to computer, checking them quickly and shutting them down. Gods, it was truly a pleasure to watch her move. It had been so long since Kris—and though he felt faintly guilty for even thinking of another, he also knew that Kris would have laughed and urged him on. It's not as if Kris had been faithful to him, or that Gaurav had even wanted that, particularly. That wasn't their way. It was just that Kris was dead, and a small part of him felt like it would be a betrayal, being with someone alive. Wor
se—if he touched someone else, kissed someone else, perhaps he would forget what it had been, to be with Kris.

  Well. No point speculating tonight—odds were, Kimsriyalani wasn't available, or interested. Most people didn't cross species lines, and just because she'd made an exception for one human earlier tonight, that didn't mean she'd make an exception for Gaurav too. It took a special feline to take a lizard to bed. He wasn't even sure they could do it without their ancestral drives leading them to fight instead. Of course, fighting would be fun too. That was why he'd allowed her insistence on coming along, despite her obvious pain and dizziness after the brilliant hack. She was half a foot taller than anyone else in the room, fiercely muscled; Kimsriyalani would be a magnificent fighter, and Gaurav had feared they'd have need of her.

  But apparently not.

  "They're shut down now," Kimsriyalani announced, sitting down in an empty chair and spinning to face the crowd. "I don’t know where the actual rockets are, but the guidance systems are down; they can’t set them off tonight. We're done, with hey, a good half hour to go. The police can take over from here. Which is great, because my head is killing me." She rubbed it ruefully, grinning.

  A sigh of relief went through them, and all around the room, people were reaching for chairs, perching on tables. Sixty of them, to the six conspirators, who were now bound securely. It was sufficient; they were safe. So why was Amara still standing in the center of the room, staring down at the well-dressed man, her body thrumming with tension?

  "Wake him up," she ordered Narita tersely. "We have to be sure."

  Narita looked like she wanted to protest. But she turned to her bag instead, ruffled through a box, pulled out a tab and pressed it to the man's neck. "Two minutes," she said.

  They waited. It was almost dawn. Even though Gaurav had now been awake for far more hours than a saurian body was meant to, even though exhaustion dragged at his muscles, so he felt as if he swimming through mud instead of walking, Gaurav's heart was still racing with how close they'd come to failing. Each step had taken time—not much time, but enough to matter. While he raced across the city, talked the captain, flew to Kimsriyalani's, talked her into helping, and watched her take down major security systems, Amara had somehow, bizarrely, found this small horde to help her get a pump, make sleeping gas, find a faculty member, and bring them all here to meet him. At any step along the way, they could have been stymied, sent astray. They could so easily have failed.

  And if they had—it had been bad enough at the hospital, seeing the consequences of one rocket. A few deaths, many injured. In the morning, there would be parents grieving their lost and damaged children. In the morning, there would be children crying for parents gone forever. All of that from just one rocket. Gaurav couldn't even imagine the devastation of a hundred landing in the same place. These fools had no idea what they were doing—the force of those missiles would have wreaked havoc and destruction far beyond the Warren; they would have torn a hole in the earth, and ripped the city itself in half. Even here, in this shielded place, the conspirators might not have survived. Hadn’t they realized that?

  He had been afraid that they'd be confronting trained soldiers here. But these people wore no uniforms. Yokels from the hinterlands. What had they thought they were doing, destroying the alien threat, the invading horde? And they were so young—judging human years wasn't his best skill, but he would have placed them all at less than twenty. Even the leader wasn’t much older. Gaurav felt tired, suddenly. He'd bet these boys had never met a non-human in their lives. Across the galaxy, how many were there, like these children? What easy prey they must be.

  Gaurav had hoped, in his deepest heart, that this war would be over quickly. But now he was sure it would not. In the morning, he would spend a month’s worth of credits, call his creche-parents. Warn them to bring all the family home, dig deep in the lowest dens. If they could, now would be a good time for the Long Sleep. If they could hibernate away the next few years, perhaps they would miss the worst of it. His family had never been fighters, not unless the eggs were threatened. Now, all the eggs, everywhere, were at risk.

  "He's waking," Narita said sharply. She kept her fingers in his pulse for a few more seconds, and then stood up and took a step back.

  The man's head jerked up, spraying spittle. He struggled for a moment, panicked, against his bonds. And then the reality of the situation seeped in—the crowd surrounding, his men knocked out. When his eyes leapt to the computer screens and saw them black and silent, he let out a low, angry groan, and as if involuntarily, struggled in his bonds once more. But Amara had tied those knots, and tied them tightly. Gaurav could see the rough cords cutting into the man's flesh, abrading the skin, remorseless. Finally, he stopped struggling, those his eyes still burned with anger and defiance.

  Amara spoke, as if by common consensus. "What is your name?"

  He hesitated, and then shrugged, as if it didn't matter. "Dhir."

  "Just a first name?"

  "You don't need the rest."

  "Why?" That was the important question, after all. The one they were all waiting to hear the answer to.

  Dhir swore. "Dammit. This was supposed to be the foolproof back-up plan. If we'd just stuck with the bombs instead…" His wrists were bound together in front of him; his hands clenched and unclenched, convulsively.

  "What bombs?" Amara asked.

  The man shook his head, refusing to elaborate, but Gaurav didn't need him to. He could see the bomb, the fragments of it, scattered across the university square. Along with a shattered flyer, and bits of flesh and blood and bone.

  "Hey, mister policeman—ease down." That was Kimsriyalani, her hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly. He barely heard her over the rage washing his eyes red, the beat of his blood drumming in his ears. This was the one. He was sure of it. This was the one who had set the bomb that killed his partner. It would be easy, so easy, to tear his head off. Gaurav's claws were already out, and he fought to pull them back in.

  Her hand was warm against his shoulder, his back. He could smell her, hot and dusty, sharp, like bottled lightning. It was good she'd used his title, not his name. He'd needed the reminder. He was a policeman, a cop. Even if Gaurav were just a security guard for the university, he had made promises, to protect the people, to follow the law. He had broken those promises enough for one night already. This man was bound, no immediate threat; if Gaurav killed him, it would be murder.

  Dhir staggered to his feet, and most of the crowd took a step back in response. Amara held her ground; Gaurav stepped forward. Oh, all he needed was a reason, an excuse. But the man did nothing else, just stood there, swaying.

  "Dhir," Amara said. "We've shut down your missiles; your men are bound, and we're turning all of you over to the cops. If there's anything else you'd like to confess, now's the time." She was frowning, though Gaurav didn't know why she was still pushing. They'd won, hadn't they?

  That was when he saw it. The moment of decision in the man's eyes, turning them black and cold as ice. The swift slide of Dhir's hand into his pants pocket—and oh, of course they hadn't searched him first, of course they'd bound his hands in front instead of behind; these were civilians, they didn't know any better. It was Gaurav's fault, whatever Dhir was about to do, Gaurav's fault for not noticing, not thinking clearly. It had been such a long and terrible night. He was so tired. Even now, Gaurav couldn’t think what Dhir might be doing—was it a weapon in his pants? A remote detonator? Might they still, after all this, fail completely? Whatever it was Dhir was attempting, it couldn't be allowed. For the sake of these people, the children, the eggs in their nests.

  Gaurav hurled himself forward, across the small space, grabbed the man in a tackle and hurled them both across the room, tumbling across the floor, limbs flailing, taking him as far from the others as he could. There wasn't time to think, but Gaurav didn't have to. Rage had already lifted him up, lent power and speed to his muscles. As for decisions—he'd made them all earlier
this night. When he'd chosen to run toward the first explosion, when he'd chosen to stay and fight for these people, instead of going home.

  There wasn't time to think of any of that, though. There was the run, the hit, the tumble, the fall. And then, the explosion, the shouting, and silence falling.

  There was no time for anything more.

  Esther woke to echoing sobs, the thud of her blood in her ears, the banging of a metal pipe against the ceiling in angry, irregular rhythm. She raised her head to find a disaster—one corner of the room blown out completely, scorches marking the edges of the blast. It was easier looking at the room than at the people. The bodies on the floor, which someone had neatly pulled into a row, though they had not yet had the decency to cover them with a cloth. She would not look, would not count them. Not yet. Instead, she took inventory of herself. Limbs intact. No gaping wounds. A persistent ringing in her ears—although maybe that was real. She couldn't tell. Clothes smoky, but mostly whole. Tiny cuts on her arms and face—not that she could see her face, but she could feel the aches. Clotted already—she must have been out for a while. From shards of debris, mostly likely. She could run the engineering analysis in her head, could calculate the force of the explosion that would do such damage. A self-destruct, apparently—what could have motivated the man, that he would kill himself, rather than be captured? Did he hate so fiercely, or was there more to it than that? They would likely never know; Esther read more than was good for her, and though she'd never lived through a war herself, she had read the histories of her people; she knew a little of what they had endured. Her own life had been untouched by violence until this moment. When, a few hours ago, Suresh had turned to her, the both of them naked and slick with sweat, in their new-made marriage bed—when he told her what their pandit's wife had sent along the link, Esther had wanted to retreat. Just for a moment. But instead she had urged him to go, had insisted that she would come as well. That was what marriage was, after all—to be made one flesh, in one community. They had not quite sorted all the ramifications of that in their whirlwind affair and courtship; they had only gone so far as to decide that they would follow their own religions, educate the children in both, and let them make their own decisions when the time came. They had planned on lots of children. She could have them still, if she wanted. His genes were on file, prudently saved in case of disease or disaster. If he had lost a limb, they could indenture themselves to pay for the replacement. But Suresh had lost more than a limb. He lay across the room, in the row of the dead, and maybe they were wrong, whoever had placed him there. But the doctor was working fiercely on another patient, her partner assisting, breathing and pounding and crying. And all around the room there was frantic motion, except for that one place, that row of the dead, which was so silent and still. If Esther had known, she would have surrendered pride, and honor, and everything Suresh loved about her. She would have let the Warren burn, and not lifted a finger. Anything to keep him safe.