’Neath Quicksilver’s Moon by Jaye Michael
Chapter Twenty-One ― Moon of Gold

 

¿Hasta cuándo, oh simples, amarán la simpleza, Y los burladores se deleitarán en hacer burla, Y los necios aborrecerán el conocimiento?

— Proverbios 1:22

How long, O simpletons, will you love being simple-minded, and you tricksters delight in trickery, and you fools hate the truth?

— Proverbs 1:22

 

 

There is only one true magic,
only one true power,
only one true redemption,
and only one true happiness ―
and that is only love.

 —Hermann Hesse

 

 

Barbara Big Horse set the prisoners from the Valentina Grizodubova who’d given their parole to rebuilding the offices and structures they’d destroyed, which kept them nicely busy. Those who declined were set to the same tasks under guard, which was irritating, but their right as prisoners, since soldiers were not and could not be required to assent to an offer of parole. Strictly speaking, the question was moot, since they weren’t actually prisoners of war, but rather stood accused of mere criminality, one of the common perils of military life, since one is compelled to obey only lawful orders, so the peril settles squarely upon the individual soldier if it turns out that an order wasn’t lawful, yet doubt as to the legality of an order offers little or no protection if later accused of failure to obey any order given by a superior officer. Damned if you do; damned if you don’t pretty much summed it up. In the end, the only real difference between the two groups was that the prisoners working on parole were given a modest stipend which they could use as they wished, and had complete freedom to walk around the town and talk to people, while those who preferred prisoner status had to rely upon their custodial officers for every necessity and comfort. It was Barbara’s opinion that the recalcitrants were idiots, since to demonstrate their ‘independence’ they made themselves more thoroughly dependent, the sublime illogic of which irritated her. She sometimes wondered — not seriously — whether daily whipping would encourage or discourage those who insisted upon imprisonment.

In the meantime, the skilled workers at the spaceport had righted the Valentina Grizodubova and were well on their way to putting it back together, since Barbara had commandeered it for her new Air Force pending an award of reparations from the Air Force, the World Federation, Senators Tamotsu Tsukasa and Irene Sarantapechaina, the Yakuza organization which had financed the attempted coup, the Chillings and Jackson estates, and anyone else their lawyers back on Earth could think of with some meaningful nexus to the many crimes perpetrated against the colonists. Although not a part of Senators Ortíz and Bihar’s long range plans, it dovetailed nicely with them, because it pulled credits, real credits, away from Earth and out onto the frontier, where it might reach further into the void.

‘Ah, well,’ she thought. ‘Dans ce meilleur des mondes possibles, tout est au mieux.’

‘If this is the best of all possible worlds,’ Jack thought, ‘it leaves a lot to be desired.’ Jack looked around his cubic with something very like disgust. After many years of service, about all he could really say about his life was that he had a window and that his cubic was a bit larger than many. The reconstructed fold-out sleeping shelf had been kind of nice, but then that would-be assassin guy, what’s his face, Hisashi Yamaguchi, who’d fancied himself a killer, had put a big gouge in it with his damned sword. Jack didn’t feel motivated to have it repaired, even though he could have turned in a chit for the cost, since it was arguably damaged in the line of duty. ‘Is this all there is?’ he thought.

Then he thought again, and called his favorite sister. “Clarice?” he said when she answered. “How’d you like to go live on Quicksilver?”

“Is this a joke?” she said warily, although Jack had never been much of a one for trying to gull people into anything, much less commit a joke in questionable taste.

“Nope,” he answered. “I’ve got five round-trip tickets — or ten one-way — on an experimental airship that can make the trip in four days.”

“So it’s not coldsleep, where everyone you know gets old or dies before you get there?”

“Nope. As I understand it, you could call back home as soon as you arrive and send pictures of yourself in front of all the local attractions with a ‘Wish You Were Here!’ banner in one hand and one of those trifruits they talk about on that soap opera you watch in the other.”

“It’s not a soap opera, Jack Webster! It’s serious drama!”

“Okay. Did I mention that I met the leading lady, by threedee connection, of course, not face-to-face?”

“Luz Calderón! You talked to Luz Calderón and didn’t tell me?! You rat! How could you?!”

“Yeah, well, I’ve had a few things on my mind lately, but I can assure you that she’s very nice in person, as it were. You know that psychic stuff she does sometimes on the shows, where she knows what people are thinking and all? It’s mostly true, as far as I can tell. I’ve seen her at work; I’d hate to play poker with her.”

“Oh my God!” she screamed so loudly and her voice went so far up into those stratospheric regions that only women and small children can reach that it hurt Jack’s ear. “You actually worked with her on a case?”

He switched his communicator over to his other ear, but held it a little further away. “Yeah, the Chillings murders out in Wyoming. I’m sure you saw the official stories about how the killers got in on the news feeds, but she was the one who figured everything out, all by remote link. It got really spooky at times.”

“Oh, my God, I can hardly believe it! Of course I want to go! Earth is getting to be a real dump these days. Can you introduce me to her?”

“I certainly hope so. I’m sweet on her best gal-pal.”

There was a long beat of stunned silence from Clarice before she said, “You’re kidding, right? Barbara Big Horse? She’s gorgeous!”

“Tell me about it.” For some reason, he started blinking as he stood there talking. “I don’t understand what she could possibly see in a man like me, but her friend Luz seems to think it’s all written in the stars or something. She said — and I can still hear her speaking as clearly as if she were in the room right now — ‘She belongs to you, you know, and you to her. You were destined for each other before the beginning of the world.’ Jesus, I can’t stop thinking about her! It’s like she’s already there inside my head!”

“Do you want to stop thinking about her, Jack?” she said quietly.

“No! But I’m afraid ….” And then he started to weep.

“Afraid, Jack?” She had that damned girly ‘I understand’ warm tone in her voice. “Or only so lonely that it hurts, and you think you might have a chance at happiness? I know you, Jack. You haven’t really been happy since Dad died.”

Jack was bewildered, almost angry. “Died?! He was murdered!”

She continued softly, inexorably, “We all die, Jack, sooner or later, so yes, he died, but he died exactly as he’d have wished to die, protecting his pregnant wife and two young children from a dangerous lunatic. I was there, Jack, and I remember. You were quite a bit younger, but do you remember what he said?”

Now he was angry. “He didn’t say anything! He just died!”

“That’s not true, Jack. He was bleeding out, dying for sure, but he managed to cuff the perp to a tree-fence and then he turned to us and said, ‘Thank God I saved you, saved you all. I ….’ and then he slumped to the ground and released his last breath before Mom or I could do anything to help him.”

“He said that? I don’t remember ….” He didn’t remember any of it, not the attack, not the tree, not the fact that his father had managed to capture the man who’d killed him, not even that he’d been there. All he remembered was a cop telling him that his Daddy was dead, and that he had to go sit in a car. It felt like he was trapped in one of these French art vids, where balloons float by in the sky and clowns in whiteface do somersaults across the room while a single masked ballerina twirls around and around en pointe. Everything was different.

“You were only five, Jack. and you were busy screaming and crying in fear. He saved you, Jack, saved all of us, and I know that what he was trying to say — before he ran out of time and breath — was that he loved us, but we knew that, had always known, and never forgot.”

“I didn’t know.” He sounded sullen, and knew it, but couldn’t help himself. All his life, he’d avoided thinking about his Dad, because it hurt too much to remember. Not that he remembered much, just a dim image of a big beefy man with a big grin on his face, sometimes the sound of his voice, but there were no words in his memories, just a big man hugging him, and a deep voice, and his open smile, something about how his eyes had crinkled with pleasure when he’d looked at him …. He blinked back tears again.

“I’m sorry, Jack. The subject of his death was always painful, and I know we all avoided talking about it, but we should have made sure that you did know. We both thought you did, Mom and I, because all you could talk about from that time forward was how you were going to be a policeman, just like Dad.”

“I do remember that,” he said. He’d been the only kid in kindergarten with a career plan. He’d worked at it, too. He wouldn’t read comics, or books, or play any games that didn’t involve detection, or crime, or something that his child’s mind could think of as being something that policemen did. Harriet the Spy, okay. Sherlock Holmes, you bet. If I Ran the Circus, not so much.

“Well, I’m sorry, Jack. I wish I’d known. I should have asked.”

“It’s okay, Short Stuff. I probably should have said something too. I knew you remembered more than I did, but I didn’t want to talk about it. I remember that much.” He grimaced, knowing that she couldn’t see him. “Anyway, could you talk to Mom about moving? And Amanda and her family? I want us all to leave Earth behind, and now I have the chance to make it happen and leave us all with enough to make a real start in our new lives. You can explain it better than I can.”

“I will, Jack, and don’t call me ‘Short Stuff’ or I’ll have to come out there and kill you. And wouldn’t you be embarrassed to arrive at the Pearly Gates with an unsolved crime on the blotter.”

“Not for long it wouldn’t be. Everyone who knows us would finger you for the beef first thing.”

“Yeah, but they haven’t grown up with a Junior Detective who bragged about how to commit the perfect crime all the time. I’ll bet I can remember a hundred schemes that only you could solve, so there.”

“You stuck out your tongue at me and crossed your eyes, didn’t you?” All of a sudden, he wished that she were in the room, so she could hug him, like she used to, when their Mom was feeling low.

“Yeah, I did. I’m sorry ….”

“Don’t be, Sis.” He laughed. “I’m feeling better now, but if you ever feel like murdering me for real, call first so I can give you some pointers on modern forensics. You can’t trust everything I bragged about as a kid. I’m lots more clever now.”

“I’ll do that, Jack. Take care of yourself. Oh, and Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Call her up and tell her that you love her. I know you haven’t, you big lug, and she needs to hear you say it as often as possible. These long-distance relationships take a lot of work.”

“Yeah, okay.”

“Don’t lie to me, Jack, or I’ll come out there and paddle your behind.”

“Yeah, yeah. You and what army?”

“Mom, of course. Don’t make me call Mom.”

“Okay, I’ll do it ….”

“Don’t lie to me, Jack.”

“I will, I swear.”

“Do it now, Jack, or as soon as you can get to one of those ansible thingies they talk about on the shows.”

“Okay. I promise ….”

“Jack!”

“I said I would!”

“But you don’t really mean it, yet. I want you to call her and tell her how you feel, and then tell her she has to call me. I reckon they must have some way to do that, with all that science stuff they use on the shows. In fact, I know they do, because they were talking about some sort of contest they were planning on one of the last shows I saw, during the break.”

‘Oh, Jeeze!’ he thought. “Okay, I will.”

“I’m counting on it, Jack, by sometime this weekend at the latest. Now say bye-bye.”

“Bye-bye, Clarise. I’ve always counted on you too.”

“I know you have, Jack. I’ll never let you down.” She had that girly tone in her voice again. It almost made him feel like he was her little brother again. looking up at her as she held his hand, or when she bent down to pick him up when he was scared.

“Bye-bye,” he said again, and rang off.

Jack’s communicator chimed a little tune he recognized, La Malagueña, which he’d assigned to Senator Ortíz. He thumbed the screen to answer.

The Senator wasted no time, as usual. “So, Jack. Getting ready to go?”

“Go? I’ve been in depositions all week, and have more scheduled for next Monday, ad infinitum.”

“Doesn’t matter. I pushed through emergency legislation regarding depositions and testimony from off-planet, since we have a spate of suits and trials upcoming with multiple nexuses of action and involvement. Threedee testimony is perfectly fine, now, as long as there’s a competent civil authority available as witness. Governor Big Horse is ideal, or anyone she delegates, and the ship is ready for its first run. You can leave tomorrow.” He rang off.

“Crap!” he spoke aloud. He thought about throwing the communicator against the wall, but then he’d have to replace it, since it belonged to the department, and besides, he needed to contact Jorge, and then his sister. “Crap!!” He had to call Barbara first, since his sister just might kill him if he broke his word to her. He checked his communicator to find the local time. “Crap!!!” Now he really wanted to hurl it against the wall, and maybe stomp on it as well. It was three o’clock in the morning at Quicksilver spaceport.

Gritting his teeth, he scrolled to her number and accessed the link to route the call through the ansible at the department. It rang once and then she answered. “Oh. Hi, Jack. I was just thinking about you.”

“But ….”

“Don’t worry about the time, Jack. I’ve been busy too, and so much of my business involves the Federated Courts and Senate that I pretty much keep DC time. Clarice says, ‘Hi!’ by the way. Has our clever Senator told you about your trip yet? I’m just guessing, of course, but that seems the most likely reason to jolt you off your default ‘procrastination’ setting.”

“You talked to Clarice?”

“Of course I did. If women waited for men to get around to anything besides eating and sex, we’d all still be living in trees.”

“But ….”

“Anyway, you’d best arrange for someone on Jorge’s staff to sell your cubic and anything you don’t want to haul along. Most of that will have to come by the scheduled service starting up next month, or the next after that, so you’ll need to have it stored. Jorge’s staff can handle it. As I understand the scoutships, whichever one you’re on has a baggage allowance of exactly one small duffle bag, and maybe less on this trip since Senator Ortíz had two cabins fitted for a matched pair of mares in coldsleep, already pregnant, and their luggage consists of several dozen vials of scientifically-selected frozen sperm from different stallions, plus saddles and tack for each. He’s got a hair up his butt about horses for some reason, so Clarice and her current squeeze will be coming week after next. Your Mom, Amanda, and her family will follow along next month or so, since they decided they’d rather wait for more luxurious accommodations on the scheduled service than share bunks with a crew of smelly guys, as they delicately put it.”

“I ….”

“Whoops! I have a crucial call coming in from a DA on your end that I’ve got to take. Don’t be late; your flight leaves at eight. See you later, alligator!” And she rang off.

Sometimes Jack wondered why he ever bothered getting out of bed at all.

Jorge was slightly sympathetic, but not entirely. “It’s a man’s part,” he said with enormous confidence, “to behave as a caballero, a chevalier, a gentleman. Women arrange the details of life, while we men handle the important matters, the protection and care of the family, and most especially the provision of an environment in which one’s wife and children feel perfectly safe and free to blossom and thrive, so that the home is filled with joy and music. You can always tell,” he said, “when a man has failed in this noble duty, because his wife and children don’t smile, and instead of innocent laughter, and voices lifted in song, the house is filled with bickering and recrimination.”

“But isn’t,” Jack reasoned carefully, “marriage a two-way street.” They were in his cubic, because Jorge had volunteered to help him pack, and then he’d discovered the case of single-malt scotch that Jack had acquired through the displaced cupidity of his former boss, not one of which bottles had been tested for palatability, so Jack’s ability to place one thought logically after the other was slightly impaired, if truth be told. Tasting it had seemed reasonable at the time, since it didn’t make any sense to carry it along if it wasn’t worth the trouble, but the philosophical disputation which had resulted seemed unlikely to further the cause of packing in any particular way.

“Nonsense!” Jorge declaimed. “It’s more like a mountain with two roads. There are paths which are impassable for men, and other paths which cannot be traversed by women. Together, a man and a woman can scale the highest heights, where singly they would inevitably fail, but the man must never trespass on the paths which are a woman’s prerogative, just as a woman should respect those roads which fall naturally within a man’s scope and unique abilities. When a man interferes in a woman’s business, he belittles her in the eyes of her friends, and in her own eyes as well, just as a woman who meddles in those affairs which properly belong to her husband makes him feel small and unappreciated. Both,” Jorge eyed Jack in solemn judgement, “are fatal to the union of two souls.”

“But Barbara,” he explained, “ is the Chief of Police, the Mayor of the town — whatever it’s called — and the Governor of the planet. It doesn’t seem to me that there’s much scope left to play around in.”

“This only demonstrates the infinite depth of your ignorance,” he said, “Compadre. Do you propose to share pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing the babies with your bride? Do you imagine that you can take these responsibilities in turn, share and share alike?” He gestured broadly to the world around them, which was fairly small, since they were two big men in a cubic designed for one, so he almost knocked over the bottle, but rescued it at the last possible instant. “Pah! This can never be. If the well-trodden paths of manhood are hidden from you, you must forge ahead and make your own way.” He inspected Jack’s face with some care. “Do you sing?”

“What?”

“Do you sing?” He obviously considered this a question of self-evident importance and was astonished by Jack’s unfortunate lack of instant comprehension. “This is the masculine art most worthy of study; every man should be able to proclaim his feelings to the world in song! Come!” He carefully put the stopper back in the bottle. “I’ll have someone take care of all this.” He gestured around the cubic with haughty disdain.

And with that, Jack was led off into the night.

The spaceport on Quicksilver was quiet when the scoutship arrived, because it was a little after midnight, and the only one to greet them was Barbara Big Horse, who stood well back from the landing area.

Jack saw her the instant the hatch opened, and at first his heart leapt into his throat as he was almost overwhelmed by insecurity, but then — as he exited the hatch and breathed his first breath of Quicksilver air — all his doubts and fears were washed away and he was filled with the same rush of emotions he’d felt on that hill in the Wyoming wilderness.

Jack had persuaded Squadron Leader Jones, the airship’s chief pilot on the voyage, to let him out the lock first, because there was someone waiting to see him, so of course they all crowded around right on his heels as he walked across the pavement carrying his small duffle, all he’d brought with him from Earth.

Right on cue, the group of five traditional musicians Jorge had arranged to meet them stepped out from behind a building and walked to meet him. Jack stopped, bowed to Barbara, then raised his hand, and the band began to play, all of them facing Barbara as she stood watching in barely-suppresed anticipation and delight.

Jack joined them on the up-beat, singing in a clear tenor:

Han nacido en mi rancho dos arbolitos,
Dos arbolitos que parecen gemelos,
Y desde mi casita los veo solitos
Bajo el amparo santo y la luz del cielo.

Nunca están separados uno del otro
Porque así quiso Dios que los dos nacieran,
Y con sus mismas ramas se hacen caricias
Como si fueran novios que se quisieran.

Arbolito, arbolito, bajo tu sombra
Voy a esperar aquel día cansado muera,
Y cuando estoy solito mirando al cielo
Pido para que me mande una compañera.

Arbolito, arbolito, me siento solo
Quiero que me acompañes hasta que muera.

He paused while the band played on through the bridge, then joined in again right on the beat:

Cuando voy a mi siembra y a los maizales
Entre los surcos riego todo mi llanto
Solo tengo de amigos mis animales
A los que con tristeza siempre les canto.

Las vacas, los novillos, y los becerros
Saben que necesito que alguien me quiera.
Mi caballito pinto y hasta mi perro
Han cambiado y me miran de otra manera.

Arbolito, arbolito, bajo tu sombra,
Voy a esperar aquel día cansado muera,
Y cuando estoy solito mirando al cielo,
Pido para que me mande una compañera.

Arbolito, arbolito, me siento solo
Quiero que me acompañes hasta que muera.

Jack waited through the coda, smiling at Barbara, whose eyes were shining, and then waited through the whistles and cheers from the impromptu audience behind him as the musicians moved to one side, then said, “I don’t have an encore yet, but I figure on a lifetime to work on my repertoire.”

“You’re crazy, you know.”

“Of course. Who but a crazy man would stretch out his merely human arms to the distant stars and expect an answer to the question he’d been asking all his life?”

“And the question was?”

“The song asked it for me, ‘Quiero que me acompañes hasta que muera; I want you to be with me until I die.’ I’ve been lonely for a very long time. We were made for each other, we knew it as soon as we saw each other, even though it was ‘impossible,’ as far as I knew then. But Luz said so, and I believed her before she said it. I’ve loved you desperately from the instant I first saw you.”

She blushed, and she didn’t look like the sort of woman who blushed easily. “Is that all you brought?” She pointed to his duffle.

“That’s it. They have a very strict baggage allowance on these flights, and even at that I blew it. All I really have is a toothbrush and what I’m wearing.”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“I mean I blew my baggage allowance, but I think you’ll like it. Jorge helped me find it, but I picked it out. As soon as I saw it, I knew that it ought to be yours. We cleared it with Luz for size and all, so I hope it fits, because it’ll be awfully hard to return.” He stretched out the duffel, supporting it from the bottom, because it was fairly heavy.

Curious, she unfastened the closure and opened the case. Inside, there was a bundle carefully wrapped in brown deerskin, tied with rawhide and feathers. Now she had to see what was inside, and she untied the rawhide bindings and unrolled the deerskin covering. Inside was another roll of leather, but this was white and beaded in an intricate design. This too she untied and unrolled, carefully holding it off the ground as it was revealed to be a Lakota Sioux woman’s dress in fringed white deerskin, heavily beaded in turquoise, faux-cinnabar, and porcupine quills in a band above the bodice and down the upper part of each arm, with lighter beading at the neck and arm openings, and with scattered beaded stars which anchored small fringe bundles on the skirt and a sun star at the center of the bodice band, just at the top of the breastbone. In a separate leather wallet, there was a matching beaded hair ornament with three eagle feathers and a beaded deerskin pouch to match the dress, with its belt, which was ornamented with silver conchos.

“You picked this out?” she said in awe.

“I did. You’d be surprised what you can find in the DC urbopolis, if you know where to look, which of course I didn’t, but Jorge is a man of the world and knows where to find almost everything.”

“How did you know that my ancestry is Lakota?”

“I didn’t,” he said. “It’s news to me even now, but as I said, I knew that this dress belonged to you. I can’t explain how I knew, but there it is. Do you like it?”

She rolled her eyes toward the skies, laughing and weeping at the same time. “Of course I like it, you madman. I’ll guarantee you it’s the only one of its kind on Quicksilver.”

“I did think that deer might be hard to come by, so I can’t imagine that you’ll have any rivals who show up wearing the same dress. According to the lady in the shop, it’s historically accurate, except that those red beads, which ought to be cinnabar, were replaced with colored hand-blown glass — specially treated to have the same luster and general appearance as the real thing — because cinnabar is poisonous, as I’m sure you know, so it’s illegal to sell a garment with cinnabar ornamentation in our modern times. The wrappings are accurate as well, as the dress would have been packed for traveling.”

“Did this helpful shop lady tell you what it was?”

“Oh, yes. But by then it was too late, because I’d already picked it out. It’s a modern reproduction of the wedding regalia of an Oglala Lakota woman, the daughter of a Chief, as I recall, as photographed by one Edward Sherrif Curtis, evidently an ancient threedee cameraman in the early Nineteen Hundreds.”

“I know. I have a digital reproduction, and I’ve seen this dress before. That woman is an ancestor of mine, Mary Záptan Sunkawakan, my great-grandmother, many times removed.” Tears began to roll down her cheeks, but she was smiling.

Jack blinked, but somehow wasn’t surprised. “Well, then, that explains it. I thought I saw a family resemblance, so your grandmother’s dress has finally come home, through somewhat roundabout means. And there’s one other thing …”

“What’s that?” she asked, intriqued.

“Back on the ship, those two horses in coldsleep you told me about some days past? They actually belong to me now, along with many vials of frozen sperm — five words I’d never imagined having the occasion to say — since Senator Ortíz was kind enough to sell them to me — at considerably below cost, I think, but still quite a lot — along with an explanation.”

“Which was?”

“They’re my betrothal gift to you, if you’ll have them, and me. I have a little ring with me as well, for those occasions you might find it awkward to carry around a growing herd of horses. Did I tell you that both of them are pregnant?”

“No, not yet, but I think I knew.” She looked like she was about to laugh, and Jack couldn’t quite tell whether that was a good thing or not.

“I know that I’m supposed to drive them before you, so you can see them first, but I have pictures on my communicator, and tomorrow, as soon as the dockworkers show up with a crane, we can unwrap them. I realize that the current tradition is for me to go down on one knee, but Jorge explained to me that, as a warrior, I should follow a different custom.”

Barbara nodded her agreement, still weeping, but in obvious joy.

“Quite recently, I alone captured Senator Irene Sarantapechaina — of the ancient Sarantapechos family of Greece — along with one of her henchmen, and killed another as he drew a weapon to shoot me. The Senator had schemed with confederates to murder you, Luz Calderón, and many others, and I caught her as she was attempting to escape. I believe that counts as several coups, and establishes my bona fides as a warrior. I won’t bore you with further details, as this one example concerns you directly.”

“Also, in retrospect, I can see that I’ve experienced a traditional vision quest, have had divine help from a holy woman, in the form of Luz, I think, a Wiȟháša Wiŋyaŋ, and encountered my vision of the Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka in the remote hills of Wyoming, near running water, which took the form of a terrifying winged woman with a fiery sword, like a Gorgon or Medusa, but also something like an avenging angel, and she was burning but not consumed by the fire, as if she were the fire itself. She attacked me, pierced me through the heart with her sword, and then wrestled with me, but she gave me something too, a clarity and sense of purpose that I’d never had before, although I’m still struggling to understand it. I’m supposed to change my name, I think, but that seems presumptuous.”

She shrugged. “It’s not necessary. The custom originated before identification cards and income tax. Times change, but it’s a charming thought. Consider me charmed.” She smiled.

“Oh, and I’m supposed to learn to play the flute, I think, although I suppose any reasonably portable instrument would do.”

She grinned. “Now that you’re on Quicksilver, I think you’ll be surprised how easily it will come to you. You might try the guitar, or a keyboard instrument, though. They’re more in demand these days. Or take up all three if you like. For a nomadic people, the flute had the primary advantage of being very portable.”

Without further preamble, she said, “I accept,” and inclined her head to him, then reached out her hand to take his, their first actual contact.

“What …?”

She raised her voice so that it carried. “Before these witnesses, I accept your gifts as my bride price and dower. We’re married, Jack, according to the customs of my people, although,” she lowered her voice, “as Governor, I have to add that, in all honesty, there’s a form we have to fill out as well. It keeps the bureaucrats back on Earth happy, but we can take our time doing that, since I’m in charge of sending it.”

“Just like that? I’m sorry I couldn’t arrange a spectacular gun battle against an army of villains for the climactic moment when I declared my love — like they do on the threedees — but this is the best I could do on short notice.”

“Just like that,” She nodded happily, “and I can’t say that I’ve ever seen a better proposal, even on Quicksilver Memories, where we pay scriptwriters good money to come up with memorable scenes.” She grasped his hand more firmly, as if she planned never to let it go. “I can live without gun battles or melodrama. I’m not that sort of woman. If you feel up to it, we could arrange a guest appearance on Quicksilver Nights, where we can reënact all the fantasies you like and no one gets hurt. The audience would love that. We can have a more elaborate ceremony later, of course, when your family arrives, and a bridal shower for the sake of your mother and sisters, to introduce them to the community as well as serve as a female bonding ceremony, especially since we’ve never met in person, but this is the moment, relatively alone in a spaceport, with a ragtag gang of casual acquaintances to witness, that I’ll remember with pleasure. I only wish our fathers might have lived to see us together, and my mother, but life is as it must be, unplanned for the most part, which is part of the delight. The mariachi band was a complete surprise,” she grinned again, “and I love surprises.”

A man cleared his throat behind them, “Ma’am, Sir? There’s something else.” it was Squadron Leader Jones, the chief pilot. “Captain Jorge Churco asked me to give you this with his compliments.” He held out a large bottle of what must be tequila wrapped in a straw cloth imprinted with a name that Jack couldn’t read in the darkness, but had no doubt was famous. Jorge, he knew, didn’t do things by halves. “For your anniversary, Ma’am, Sir. He said it was traditional.”

Barbara reluctantly released her grip on Jack’s hand, took Jorge’s gift, and said, “Well, airmen, musicians, thank you all, and please consider yourselves our guests for the duration of your stay here. I probably have the entry code available for a nice little cantina, right down the street here, so won’t you please allow my husband and I to buy you men a drink? When they see the lights are on, I’m quite sure people will drift in so I can introduce you. Please tell whomever you left on watch to come along as well. There’s no need for caution here, and I formally relieve him and you of that duty while in port here. We only keep things locked where children might wander in and hurt themselves, and we do maintain a watch on the skies these days.”

And so, in general amicability, they all strolled through the darkened airport and then out onto the road to town.

The soldiers went away and their towns were torn down;
and in the Moon of Falling Leaves they made a treaty with
Maȟpíya Lúta (Red Cloud)
that said our country would be ours
as long as grass should grow and water flow.

 ― Heȟáka Sápa (Black Elk)
Heyókȟa (Sacred Jester) and
Wičháša Wakȟáŋ (Holy Man)
of the Oglála Lakȟóta (Sioux)

Copyright © 1993, 2010, 2011 by Jeffrey M. Mahr

All rights reserved.

 

DEDICATION:

To my loving wife, Betty. She completes me.

 

 

Copyright © 2011 Levanah