Fated

This week, we return to the world of Mary Anne Mohanraj’s Jump Space universe, exploring multi-layered relationships, consequences, and the meaning of family (you can read Mary Anne’s previous Sunday Morning Transport story in that universe, “Expulsion” here) . ~ Julian and Fran, May 12, 2024

This month’s stories are by authors Jeffrey Ford, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Kat Howard, and Eugenia Triantafyllou. The first story of the month is free to read, but it’s our paying subscribers who allow us to keep publishing great stories week after week.

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Fated

by Mary Anne Mohanraj

Her ancestors had consulted fortune tellers who read the future in the stars. They could do better now; her aunties swore that the AIs just knew what was coming. They weren’t real AIs, of course—for all humanity’s advancement, true machine sentience was one barrier that hadn’t yet been cracked. None of the aliens they’d met had self-aware AI, either—or if they did, they didn’t broadcast that information. But what humans had created so far was close enough for many—feed enough information in, and the machine fortune tellers would generate a vision of what was to come.

Appa waited in a flyer outside the courthouse door, careful to avoid any chance of being recorded by passersby. It wouldn’t help the family business for him to be associated with his criminal daughter. The door irised open for her and Anju climbed inside.

He asked, “They’re recording?”

Anju raised her hand, displaying the golden bangle that fit over her wrist. Too tight to slide off. “Audio and video. The judge didn’t think I needed to have my chip monitored.” A fragment of privacy left to her.

Her father grunted. He’d be careful with his words. “I saw the sentence on the news. Expulsion off-planet in three days.”

“I can appeal.”

He frowned. “We’ll discuss it when we get home. Manish is waiting for you.”

That was unexpected, and Anju felt a little flutter of something in her chest. She’d been numb since the attack, all emotion drained out of her at the sight of Bedi’s body on the floor, blood seeping from her head.

Her errant husband had returned. Maybe Manish felt bad for abandoning them. Maybe if he’d stuck around, none of this would have happened.

“Can we go to the hospital?” Bedi was still unconscious three days later. “I haven’t seen her since . . .” The city guards took me away to isolated custody.

Her father hesitated, then said, “That’s not a good idea. We’ll sort this all out at home.”

Anju sighed. “Yes, Appa.” She had no heart to fight him—and Rohit, the light of her life, would be at home. Maybe when Anju saw her little boy, she’d remember how to breathe.

Fortune-telling was expensive, but worth the price. So Appa always said—he consulted the machines before any major business decision. He’d consulted them before arranging her marriage, too, which did make Anju wonder. But Appa said it was her fault that Manish had wandered off. Even the machines couldn’t control a difficult daughter.

Manish had lost weight. That was the first thing Anju thought when she walked into the kitchen. He looked scrawny, underfed. If he’d stuck around, she wouldn’t have let that happen. She would have cooked for him—the ripe jackfruit curry he liked so much, eggplant pickle, fried chilies stuffed with paneer, all on a bed of buttery white rice. When they were courting, Manish had told her he loved her cooking.

“Anju. I’ve missed you.” He was walking forward, reaching out to her, as if nothing had happened. Appa had disappeared, leaving them alone in the dark room. It was almost night; the sun was setting over the dome, and only faint light came in the windows. Appa preferred oil lamps to electric; the servants should have lit the lamps by now—where were they? Had he sent them home early so they wouldn’t witness the family’s shame?

Manish’s hand cupped Anju’s face, tilting it up. He bent down—oh, she’d forgotten how much taller he was. Old habits sent her rising to her toes, her lips opening for him. His lips met hers, and heat flushed through her. He could still do this to her, despite everything. And then she remembered what everything included now.

Anju pulled away, and Manish let her go. “Where’s Rohit?” She needed to see him, needed to wrap her arms around that four-year-old boy body, pull it close and let it ground her. Nothing could be wrong when Rohit clung to her, when she sang old lullabies, when he went heavy and sodden with sleep. Every inch of her skin longed for him.

Manish said gently, “Your father thought it would be better if he wasn’t here tonight. He’s sleeping over at your cousin Vasugi’s house.”

“Better for whom?” Anju asked, bewildered and a little angry. Though true anger took more energy than she could dredge up right now.

He reached out again, took her hand in both of his. His hands were strong, more weathered than she remembered, a little rough. What had he been doing with them, all this time? He said, “Anju, please. We need to make plans, and you know we won’t be able to speak freely with the child here.” Manish reached up, touched her cheek gently. “Are you hungry?”

“No, they fed me well.” They’d tried to, but she’d had no appetite. The thought of eating now made Anju feel ill.

He nodded. “Let’s go to our bedroom, then; we can talk there.”

Our bedroom? It hadn’t been that for four years, not since soon after Rohit was born. But Manish tugged gently at her hand. Mutely, she followed.

It didn’t seem so bad; she was working on one of her father’s trading ships, trying to make trades. But soon it became clear that no one wanted to trade with a criminal—every time she began a trade, the records would pop up in the client’s chip: her public shame. Soon the captain moved Anju to the back of the ship—no more contact with clients. Menial jobs, cooking and cleaning, scrubbing the rank oxygen filters. And she didn’t mind that; it was all worth it to stay with her Rohit. But the contempt that the crew had for her!

They blamed her when trades went poorly, or even when they weren’t quite as good as they might have been. Anju was bad luck, and they punished her with little cruelties, which she bore as well as she could. But eventually the frustration and resentment would build, and she’d fight back, and after a few incidents like that, she and Rohit would be kicked off the ship, out of the shelter of her family’s protection. Thin, patchy shelter, but it turned out, better than nothing, for a woman and child alone in a cold universe.

It was easier to go along with Manish, easier to close her eyes and let her body respond. Comforting, in a way. When they’d finished and flopped back into their separate sections of the bed, Anju felt a flicker of actual hunger for the first time in three days. Maybe she could eat something.

“I have a proposition,” Manish said, propping himself up on one elbow.

“Didn’t we just do that?” Anju sat up in the bed, trying to pull herself together. A little coriander soup, maybe with some red rice stirred in. She could probably keep down soup.

“No, be serious, Anju.” He sat up as well so they were facing each other. No longer touching. “This was very nice, but we have to think about Rohit’s future. I’ve spoken with your father. I’m willing to take on custody and raise him here.”

Really? What could her father have offered to nail down Manish’s wandering feet like that? Half the company? All of it, when the time came? Then it hit her, what he was really saying. All the breath left her body. Anju folded over her belly, feeling as if she’d been punched there. They wanted her to leave Rohit behind.

Her voice went high, thready. “Was that why you wanted to go to bed? For the recording, so a judge would believe that you were a real husband, that you could be a real father?” Anju was climbing out of bed, dragging her grubby clothes back on. She probably stank, and she wanted a shower and clean clothes, but all of that could wait. Right now she couldn’t be naked with this man.

Manish wouldn’t meet her eyes. “Just think about it. Your father wants to see you now. He has something to show you. I think you’ll understand after you see it.”

He was talking to her father? Right now? Sending messages through his chip while they were in the middle of . . . whatever this was?

Anju was burning, her face hot, blazing with rage. “How can you do this to me? Aren’t you afraid of what I’ll do to you?” She hissed the next words: “I’m a killer, you know.”

“Bedi’s not dead yet,” Manish said calmly. “Your father is waiting.”

Anju wanted to scream, to wail, but if she let herself start, she wasn’t sure she would ever stop. Her father was waiting, and if she came in screaming, he’d never listen.

Anju had to cooperate. She would see what her father wanted to show her, and then she would explain to Appa, calmly and rationally, in a way that he had to understand, that there was absolutely no way in any universe that she would leave her little boy behind.

The future unrolled itself, darker with each passing minute. Anju and Rohit, on a mining asteroid. No school for him, just endless hours in virtual training modules, all she could afford. And she barely saw him, working long hours, hard, dirty work. Going out in the little rover, battling with the parts that constantly broke, terrified every time she pulled on her suit to confront the cold vacuum of unforgiving space.

“I paid for the best projection, cost a small fortune. We’ve run it over and over, and the results are always the same.”

Anju stood in the center of her life, holo-projected all around her, and watched as she and Rohit fell down into a dark pit, step by miserable step. Every path seemed to lead to her breaking under the weight of abuse, fighting back, getting herself beaten, knocked down another level. Was that really who she was? The machines thought so. And they had all the data.

Her father’s voice was relentless. “You always get kicked off the ship. It varies from there—sometimes you end up in a mining colony, sometimes working on an asteroid—you even head out to the Fringe planets, which is the kind of foolishness I would never expect from a daughter of mine!”

Rohit sick, lying on a straw pallet in some kind of tin shack, coughing his little lungs out. Rohit injured, his leg caught in a piece of machinery, so he walked with a limp, if he could walk at all. Rohit caught in the midst of a drug deal, or some interspecies violence, or just someone who didn’t like brown people, or humans, shot and killed and Anju left to weep over his small, broken body.

“Oh, stop, stop! Stop showing me these!”

“You understand now?” Her father’s voice had no kindness in it, no affection or sympathy. Only stern necessity. “We cannot allow you to condemn Rohit to that kind of fate. If you leave him with us, his future is so much brighter. I can show you that, too, if you want. . . .”

“No,” Anju said dully. “That’s all right. I believe you.” Was a mother’s love and care worth nothing? Apparently not.

Her appa hesitated, and maybe he had a shred of pity for her after all. “It’s late; you’re exhausted. Go to bed, sleep on it. You can decide in the morning.”

Manish walks Rohit to school—they’d cleaned away all the blood years ago, of course. Anju can’t hear what they’re saying, but they’re smiling, laughing. At one point, Rohit reaches up his arms, and Manish bends down and swings him up, up, to land seated on his shoulders. Rohit throws his arms out wide, grinning, the young prince surveying his kingdom and finding it good. Without Anju in the picture, everything is perfect.

Anju couldn’t sleep. She sent a message to Vasugi, asking her to come get her at dawn, before the rest of the family was even awake. She used their priority code, waking her cousin from sleep. It was important—Anju couldn’t rent a flyer herself anymore. The planetary system had been set to exclude her.

Vasugi was waiting in the flyer, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Rohit’s fine. I checked on him before coming over—he’s curled up with my boys, in a big puppy pile. I let Kishore know I was going, but he won’t contact your father. They’ve never gotten along.”

Anju nodded. “I knew I liked your husband.”

“Do you want to come over and see Rohit?”

Anju wanted that with every fiber of her being. “Hospital first.”

Vasugi hesitated. “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

“No. But I can’t decide this without seeing her.” Was Anju the monster the machines foretold? She didn’t feel like a monster. Things had just . . . gotten away from her.

“All right. I’m here for you.” Vasugi had never been the demonstrative sort, and she had to concentrate on driving anyway—but she pressed one leg against Anju’s in the cramped confines of the flyer, and for a moment Anju let herself press back.

She’d gone back to the projections when she couldn’t sleep, run one after another, hoping to find another path forward.

The worst vision was the last one. Anju was much older, haggard, and Rohit was a teenager. Not filled out yet, still scrawny with youth and perhaps years of poor nutrition. They were fighting about something, screaming at each other, and then something snapped, and they went for each other, fists flailing. Anju grabbed a pot off the stove, swung it at him—

That was when she’d turned the projections off and sent Vasugi the message.

When they got to the hospital, Vasugi only hesitated a moment before taking Anju’s hand, walking with her through the broad front doors.

Bedi looked as if she was sleeping. For a few blessed moments Anju felt a wave of relief. Everyone had exaggerated, surely. It had been an accident, the judge should understand, Anju would file an appeal. . . .

Anju stepped forward eagerly, farther into the room.

Oh.

Now she saw enough of Bedi’s forehead to see the nasty bruise spreading out from the bandaged portion. Where Bedi’s head had hit the desk corner. They’d shaved part of her hair on that side for the surgery, which made it feel more real. Blood and head wounds and terrible bruises and comas were the stuff of holo-novels. Terrible haircuts were very real.

Vasugi had dropped her hand and hovered in the doorway, as if she was afraid to come in but also afraid to leave Anju alone with Bedi. Didn’t her cousin know her better than that? Anju said impatiently, “I’m not going to do anything to her.”

“Of course not,” Vasugi said reassuringly. “But are you sure it’s all right, you being here? They didn’t put any restrictions on where you could go?”

Anju shrugged, still staring at Bedi. “I didn’t tell them I was coming here, but they’re watching. If they didn’t know before, they know now. I suppose they may not have thought that I might want to come—” How many almost-murderers wanted to see their victims? She had no idea. When she’d walked into the room, she’d felt, deep down, that this was all a terrible mistake. But the longer she stood here, looking at Bedi, the more she wondered. She remembered the fury pulsing through her, how easy it had been to reach out, to grab and push and fight for what she wanted. All for Rohit, of course, but other mothers loved their children and didn’t end up here.

A nurse paused in the hallway. “Oh, are you friends of hers? You heard the good news, yes? She woke up for a little while, late last night. The doctors think she’s going to pull through.”

Vasugi let out a little sigh. “That’s wonderful. Thank you for telling us.”

Anju thought the woman probably shouldn’t have said that, but the nurse was so clearly happy and so she wanted to share that happiness with them. Anju could forgive her mistake; to err was human. She’d read that in a book somewhere, back when she was just a girl, studying with Bedi for their literature exams, heads bent together in perfect harmony. Before they grew apart, and everything fell apart. It felt like another world.

The nurse smiled and walked on, and Vasugi turned back to Anju. “This changes everything. I’m sure your father is taking the fortune teller too seriously; really, only gullible people buy into that kind of thing. Your father is so old-fashioned; I bet he still believes in numerology, too. I know he hired an astrologer to find the most propitious day for your marriage. You should file the appeal, try to get a lighter sentence. Maybe you could get assigned to a few years of work detail instead. . . .”

And what would happen to Rohit then? Raised by a feckless man and her overbearing father, raised to despise his absent mother. Even if she came back to him eventually, what would Anju be coming back to? Assuming she could trust herself near him at all—the machines had been so convincing. Maybe Vasugi was right, and the machines were wrong. But could she risk her son’s future on that call?

She was his mother—Anju would always fight for him, with the last breath in her body. But maybe she had lost this fight, in the moment when she had pushed Bedi hard enough to make her fall and hit her head. Or maybe even before that, when she tried to cheat and change his scores on the test. That kind of fighting for her son had only brought her grief. Maybe it was time to try a different way.

Anju stole Rohit and ran away, despite the court’s decision to give Manish custody. She figured out how to trick the bracelet long enough to grab money and their IDs and get to the spaceport and onto a ship. She had plenty of money—she’d raided her father’s accounts, transferred so many credits that they wouldn’t have to work for years.

And still, it ended in tears and ruin. Every path, every twist and turn, every attempt to avoid her fate led to the same terrible result.

Anju stood in the kitchen, facing her father. It was funny—this was where Bedi and she had had their last big fight, so many years ago, the one that had marked the end for them. This would be an ending, too. She said, “I don’t know if the machines are right.”

He scoffed, “Ptah! Of course they are. So much raw computer power. You think you’re smarter than them? You’re not so smart, girl.”

Anju bit back a sharp reply—it would only make him angry, and she needed him to be rational now. “Appa. It doesn’t matter. I don’t care if they’re right or not. But I do know one thing—Rohit deserves better than to be raised by Manish. I should never have agreed to that marriage—he’s charming, but he’s a feckless idiot.”

Her father hesitated. “True. But I would be there to keep an eye on them; I’d make sure that he toed the line.”

“Is that the father you want for Rohit? Someone reluctant, who has to be bribed into semi-competence?” Anju made her voice cold and hard, fought back the tears pricking at her eyes. She had to convince him she was serious. “If you push for that, I’ll fight you. I’ll make a big, public splash, file every appeal I can, go on the news and talk about the family every chance I get.”

Appa’s face reddened, the flush showing even through his brown skin. His lips tightened, and his eyebrows scrunched down. “Do you have no shame, daughter? Would you ruin us?”

She had to fight not to take a step back—he seemed bigger, stronger in his rage. Anju braced her spine and said calmly, her voice laced with ice: “Yes, I’d ruin you, for Rohit’s sake. That is my duty as a mother.” Then she let her tone soften a bit. “But I do have shame, Appa. Or at least regret. He deserves better than me, too. I talked to Vasugi; she’s willing to take him in, raise him with her boys. If you let her do that—I’ll go quietly. That’s the deal.”

The woman and boy walked across the spaceport pad slowly, accommodating his short legs. She held his hand carefully in hers—there was always the chance of an accident in a place like this, and it would be unbearable if anything happened to the child. They walked all the way to the base of the ramp that led up to the Jump ship’s main door, her cousin following a few steps behind.

She knelt down, wrapped her arms around him, and held him close for a long, long time, until he was squirming and restless. She gave him a kiss on the forehead, stood up, and sent him back to take his aunty’s hand.

She walked up the ramp into the ship, into an uncertain future.

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Thank you for joining our journey this week.

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Mary Anne Mohanraj is author of A Feast of Serendib, Bodies in Motion, The Stars Change, and twelve other titles. Recent publications include stories for George R. R. Martin’s Wild Cards series; Perennial: A Garden Romance (Tincture); stories at Clarkesworld, Asimov’s, and Lightspeed; and an essay in Roxane Gay’s Unruly Bodies.

Mohanraj founded Hugo-nominated and World Fantasy Award–winning speculative literature magazine Strange Horizons, and serves as executive director of both DesiLit (desilit.org) and the Speculative Literature Foundation (speclit.org). She is a clinical associate professor of fiction and literature at the University of Illinois at Chicago. www.maryannemohanraj.com.

“Fated,” © Mary Anne Mohanraj, 2024.

The Sunday Morning Transport: Selected Stories 2022 is now available at Weightless Books!