“We’ll be watching,” Stig told her. “In case the Institute causes any trouble.”
“I’m sure you will. Good-bye, and thanks.”
“Safe journey.”
***
As modern-day wedding ceremonies involving members of Intersolar Dynasties went, it was short and very old-fashioned. Wilson and Anna went for the classical love, honor, and obey pledges. Current fashion was for the bride and groom to write their own vows, or if they lacked the poetic streak themselves hire someone to compose some poignant lines on their behalf. The newest one-upmanship variant of this was for the vows to be set to music in order for the happy couple to sing them to each other in front of the altar. Society brides had been known to undergo a little cellular reprofiling of the vocal cords to ensure perfect harmony.
“You can stuff that,” Anna said when the hopeful wedding planner mentioned it as a possibility.
It was a good decision, given who was actually attending their service in the Babuyan Atoll multidenominational chapel. Chairwoman Gall was of course invited, on the groom’s side, and managed to sit in the pew in front of President Elaine Doi and the Senate delegation led by Crispin Goldreich. Senior navy personnel sat on the bride’s side, along with a small number of Anna’s family, who looked uncomfortable and out of place amid so many Grandees. Wilson had to make some tough choices about who to have from his own extensive family. His ex-wives were omitted despite him being on good terms with nearly all of them; on principle he asked one child from each previous marriage, a representative number of direct descendants; then of course there were a lot of Farndale people he had to invite—political obligation. Courtesy meant he had to invite Nigel Sheldon, who said yes for himself and four of his harem. Ozzie was sent an invitation, but didn’t bother to reply.
Given the ever-expanding number of guests, suggestions were made to the couple that they use a cathedral to accommodate all the additional people who really, really, would like to attend. Wilson said a flat no, and wished to God he’d never listened to Patricia Kantil and her idea about feelgood propaganda. A full third of the chapel pews were reserved for media correspondents. Medium-level reporters on permanent assignment covering the navy in High Angel suddenly found their “company” invitation appropriated by celebrity anchors and chief executives.
Wilson sat in the front pew slapping one hand into the other while the organist played some dreadful twenty-second-century hymn. His perfectly tailored dress uniform with its flawless midnight-black cloth was becoming oppressively warm while he waited. And waited.
“Probably won’t show,” Captain Oscar Monroe said cheerfully, and loud enough for several nearby pews to hear. “I wouldn’t. Too much pressure. Should have had a private ceremony like you originally wanted.”
“Thank you,” Wilson hissed at his best man.
“Just doing my job; preparing you for the worst.” He twisted around in his seat. “Yep.”
“She’s here?”
“Nope. The press are all starting to smile at the nonarrival. It’s like a display of saber-toothed dentistry back there.”
Wilson felt the appallingly strong urge to giggle. “Shut up, you dick.”
With a theatrical flourish, the organist began to play the wedding march. Wilson and Oscar stood up, not looking at each other in case they started laughing out loud. Anna began her walk up the aisle on Rafael Columbia’s arm. A hundred professional retinal inserts followed her every move. Thousands of studio-based couture experts lamented that she was wearing her uniform. A unisphere audience of nine and a half billion completely ignored them.
Navy personnel filled the chapel’s garden. Off duty or just taking a break, they all turned up to applaud the Admiral when he and Anna came out of the chapel doors arm in arm, smiling in true couplelike unison. Both of them grinned at the spontaneous display of support, and waved as they walked over to the marquee set up beside the chapel. The rest of the guests spilled out onto the grass, looking up at the waning crescent of Icalanise beyond the crystal dome. Strong slivers of light shone a few hundred kilometers away from the gigantic alien starship, the new assembly platforms forming their circular pattern in front of the stars. For the politicians it was surprisingly reassuring to see their committee work and deal making and budget trading actually translated into solid hardware. A lot of them looked at the simple pattern of lights, and compared them to the images of thousands of ships descending on the Lost23 worlds. In such circumstances, total reassurance was difficult to come by.
Nobody let it spoil the festivities. Even the celebrity reporters behaved themselves, as well as could be expected. Nearly all of them tried to get up close to Nigel Sheldon at some point in the reception. He wasn’t often seen out in public, and the off chance of an exclusive was too tempting. Vice President Bicklu pointedly ignored Oscar, who raised a glass every time he caught the VP glaring in his direction. Ten-year-old Emily Kime, who was Anna’s one bridesmaid, managed to down two glasses of white wine before her parents found out. Alessandra Baron and Michelangelo adopted some magical people variant of identical magnetic poles repelling each other in order to avoid coming within ten meters for the whole reception.
Wilson and Anna left early for a luxury hotel over in New Glasgow. Officially they had twenty-four hours’ leave in which to conduct their honeymoon. The media were all quietly briefed that in reality they would both be back at work the following morning. Everybody was taking the navy’s response to the Lost23 very seriously indeed. The newlyweds were also postponing having any family until after the Prime alien situation was resolved. In that they were no different from any other couple in the Commonwealth. Womb tank leasing companies and germline modification clinics were going out of business on every world as people stopped having children. It was a trend that the Treasury was monitoring with some urgency, along with hundreds of other economic downturns.
It was close to midnight when Oscar left the party and took a personal pod over to the concave-walled tower that was Pentagon II. Even this late most of the offices were fully staffed. The navy was operating nonstop to finalize the designs of its new ships, and see them into production. Oscar was due to take the Defender out for a month-long patrol flight in a few days’ time; and he was expecting the starship to be effectively obsolete by the time he got back. CST technicians had already delivered the prototype marque 6 hyperdrive, with a theoretical speed of four light-years per hour. The test flight was scheduled for a fortnight’s time. Such was the pace of progress, the marque 5 had been obsolete before it ever even got out of the design array.
The elevator delivered him to the twenty-ninth floor. Up here, at the executive level, there were fewer people around. Nobody passed him as he walked the short length of corridor to his office. He locked the door and sat behind his desk, with the lights barely on. For a long time he did nothing. It wasn’t the first time he’d come up here ready to do this. Each time he’d…not chickened out exactly; anger had driven him away. Anger about Adam coming back and making this demand. Anger that fueled a determination not to give in, not to be pushed around. Not like before, when he was first-life young, when the two of them had been idiotic hotheads following a cause someone else had infected them with.
Some of those times spent sitting here, Oscar had nearly called Rafael Columbia. Just get it all over with. It would mean a terribly long time in life suspension, but when—or if—he ever did emerge it probably would be into a better society. That always made him laugh bitterly. Typical Monroe cop-out; let someone else get on with it while you wait for better days.