Eternity or Bust: Mission 16 (Black Ocean)

by J. S. Morin

  “I’d have paid it,” Laramie said with conviction. “Piss off half a night’s net on the maybe that you are out there. Alive. Needin’ me. Now come on. No time for moping. I got me a baby sister again. We gone celebrate.”

  “I’ve got a wedding to be at in five hours!” Yomin shouted after her brother as she chased him down the wooden stairs.

  “Then we celebrate quick like,” he said without turning back.

  There was no band in the morning hours, but enough of the patrons knew how to play that Laramie rounded up a group. He played bass. A retro-volcanic ska stylist took lead guitar while an elderly laaku played drums. Rhythm guitar, sax, and most of all lead singer got rotated as the impromptu ensemble played a motley medley of everything from old gospel to last week’s pop hits.

  By the time she said her goodbyes and stumbled toward the tram station, Yomin’s voice was raw and her heart was light. She was even mostly sober.

  # # #

  The little anteroom the wedding party had borrowed was a spare office that the restaurant wasn’t using. Piles of cloth and cosmetic accoutrements lay strewn across a battered metal desk. Yomin had been in and out on minor errands, but Esper and Amy were the constant occupants.

  Amy sat fidgeting on a barstool as Esper brushed through the tangles of her hair. Esper had never been a bridesmaid, she claimed, but this was Amy’s first ever wedding. She’d attended them before. Oddly, Amy had attended one of Carl’s, back when the whole remaining roster of the Half-Devils made the guest list.

  The odd jealousy she’d felt of Tanny that day held a different context now. At the time, she’d felt like she was losing her old commanding officer to some interloping marine. She’d been blind to the more basic reason.

  “Doing this without magic brings back memories,” Esper said wistfully as the brush cleared through snarls with each pass.

  “You’ve been a wizard for what, a year or two?” Amy asked, wondering just how nostalgic a woman could get for a task she’d done within the current registration period of the ship she lived aboard.

  “You know how bowling night lasts three weeks?” Esper asked. Amy twitched her nod lest she pull her own hair. “Well, Mort’s version is a year a night. Do the math on that. While my body is still—good gracious, how old am I, even? Twenty-six? My brain thinks I’m hundreds.”

  Amy swallowed. Entire lifetimes in the head of one wizard or another. She was just looking forward to the one. Her, Carl, one or more kids, that would be plenty for her. Amy didn’t need magical make-believe worlds or a crazy lifespan. One good life, that was all she asked.

  “Give me sixty more good years,” Amy said. “I won’t even get greedy and go for Methuselah Corp’s 150 plan.”

  “Bet you could afford it by then,” Esper said lightly. “If Carl put his mind to making and saving money instead of having fun with dangerous heists, you two could make a fortune.”

  Amy smiled. “That wouldn’t be my Carl.”

  “No. Probably not.”

  There was a knock at the door. “No peeking,” Amy replied, assuming it was Carl’s fourth attempt to gain entry.

  “We have a visitor who wanted to stop by,” a familiar but recently learned voice replied through the door. It was Cody, from the care home. That could only mean…

  Amy leapt from her seat clad only in a lacy slip. The hairbrush tugged at a few strands of hair as Esper quickly pulled it clear. “Mom!” Amy called out as she opened the door.

  There she was, like a high-res holovid. Judith Charleton was hunched and leaning on Cody’s arm but let go to reach out for her daughter with both arms. She was thin and frail, with arms like chicken bones and a ribcage like a sparrow’s. But her hug was warm, and she planted kisses on both Amy’s cheeks. Her eyes were misted.

  “My baby,” Judith said.

  Amy escorted her into the little preparatory hideaway, gently guiding her by the arm.

  “Nice to meet you, Mrs. Charleton,” Esper said with a smile, holding out a hand.

  Judith shook it with a limp grip. “Are you my new daughter-in-law?”

  “Carl, Mom,” Amy said. “I’m not gay. Pregnant. Old-fashioned way. Marrying the father.”

  Judith reached up and caressed Amy’s cheek. “That’s right. That’s right. You said that, didn’t you? You could do worse than this one, though.” She said, hooking a bony thumb at Esper. “Get knocked up together. Two mothers. Women treat each other right.”

  “Carl’s going to be a fine father and husband,” Esper assured Judith. Was she blushing? From the stories floating around the ship, there wasn’t a lot that should make the wizardess blush.

  “Thanks,” Amy said for the vote of confidence. “Can you give me a few minutes with my mom?”

  Esper tapped her wrist where an imaginary chrono would have rested if she wore one. “Forty-five minutes to show time. Don’t take too long.”

  Judith corralled Esper on her way by, kissed her on the cheek, and whispered something into her ear that sounded suspiciously like a backup plan in case Carl didn’t work out. Esper giggled softly just before exiting.

  “You’re looking good, Mom,” Amy said. All things relative, she did. Her last memories of her mother in person weren’t pretty. Paranoia, delusion, and mania had been her daily routine. It had been a relief when Amy’s application for admission to a care home had been approved.

  Amy helped Judith onto the stool that was the room’s only seat.

  “You’re a dear girl,” Judith said, voice tremulous with infirmity despite being around the same age as Chuck and Becky Ramsey. Worry had wrung the life out of her prematurely. “But you’re a liar. You’re radiant, and I’m a burnt candle.”

  “You can relight candles,” Amy said hopefully.

  Judith waved away the notion. “Wick’s burnt down to the nub. But who wants to talk about me? Tell me all about this woman of yours.”

  “Guy,” Amy reiterated. “Carl.”

  “Carl, then,” Judith said to Amy’s relief. “Well, then. Tell me all about this Carl I’m gaining as a son-in-law.”

  Amy smiled. Where to begin? Forty-five hours might not be enough. She only had forty-five minutes until she married him.

  She cleared her throat for the abridged version. “Well, it all started when I was nearly kicked out of the navy…”

  # # #

  At the back of the wedding venue’s kitchen, the tops of two beer bottles clinked together. The drinking pair wore matching tuxedos—all tuxedos matched, really. One was human, the other laaku. They formed an island in the sea of organized chaos all around. The scent of Beef Wellington and the clatter of cookware surrounded them. Steam rose and vents hummed. Cooks crowded past one another as wait staff bustled in and out. But the two drinkers in the back stayed out of the fray.

  Carl sucked down a swallow of the local homebrew. Not bad stuff. Maybe a little lightweight for his taste. “Déjà vu,” he muttered.

  Roddy shook his head, expertly tracking the movement with his own bottle. “Nah. Déjà vu is the erroneous feeling you’ve done something before. This is your fourth time at this rodeo. Nothing erroneous about the recursive flashbacks.”

  “This isn’t like the other times,” Carl observed.

  With a single snort of derision, Roddy destroyed that entire argument. “Only because this is the first time it’s not Tanny you’re marrying. Only so many times you can try to force a gorilla-shaped peg into a human-sized hole.”

  “Hey!” Carl snapped. “She wasn’t a gorilla. She was fucked up but so are all of us. At least we were willing to try. Besides… it’s not like that with Amy.”

  “You can say that again. I keep hearing these old stories about people thinking she was cross-wired upstairs, but she’s got it together better than you do.”

  “Thanks,” Carl muttered, unsure how much it was a vote of confidence in his soon-to-be bride verses an indictment of his own mental faculties. Tilting his bottle all the way back without result, he concluded that he was
out of beer. “Hey, where’d you grab these? I’m dry.”

  “Might be about time to switch you over to kiddie drinks,” Roddy said with a scolding wag of his own beverage. “Save the suds for the after party.”

  Carl sighed wistfully, glancing up at the wall chrono as the kitchen staff bustled beneath preparing handmade meals for the reception. The laaku was right. Beer made the time pass quicker, but Carl wanted to remember this day. If the reception got a little blurry, that was forgivable, but he wanted to remember Amy, radiant in white, even if she never opted to wear a dress again in her life.

  “Hey, best man,” Carl said. “You’re my wrangler for another thirty-five minutes. Go wrangle me up a coffee. Black.”

  Roddy glared as he left to search the kitchen but seemed in better spirits when he returned with Carl’s coffee—and another beer for himself.

  # # #

  The function hall was packed. The band played a wedding march on guitar. When it first started, Esper had assumed it was one of Carl’s old songs—and at the outset, perhaps it was—but then the familiar, time-honored melody emerged and everything went onward from there.

  Carl was barely recognizable in a tuxedo and a fresh shave, hair glistening with something to keep its normal unruliness in check. He stood at near military attention, scanning the crowd with a big smile on his face, waving when he made eye contact with someone.

  Roddy looked like someone had shrunk Carl into laaku size. Their attire was practically identical—from the same quick-rent formal wear service, no doubt. There wasn’t even a sign of alcohol concealed in his jacket or pants pockets.

  The guest list was more impressive than Esper had imagined on short notice. Many of them were people Esper had never met, a reminder that everyone had had lives before the Mobius and before she had joined the crew.

  Juggler and Vixen were there with no evidence of their children around. They must have flown in and dropped them at an hourly care center for kids. A few shady-looking characters too comfortable in their expensive suits hinted that perhaps portions of the Rucker Syndicate had been invited. Samurai lurked at the back of the function hall wearing a formal kimono and carrying his sword. There were more guests in Earth Navy dress uniforms than Esper would have imagined still on speaking terms with Carl.

  But the crown jewel of the guest list and the reason for everyone’s presence on Earth was a wizened old version of Amy in a frumpy pink dress, carrying a handbag. She sat front and center, just off the aisle, close enough to reach out and touch Amy as she walked by.

  As the music played, Amy appeared at the end of the hall, door held for her by one of the restaurant staff. She marched alone. There was no one to give this bride away. Before being nominated maid of honor, Esper had offered. But Amy was Amy. There was one concession she’d made to tradition that she had every right to buck. But instead of a navy lieutenant’s Class A uniform, she, like Carl, chose to go for old fashioned.

  Amy’s dress was pure white. It covered from floor to neckline with sleeves that blended seamlessly with long gloves. Her ever-expanding figure had been artfully accommodated by expandofab cloth cleverly concealed beneath elaborate lacework. Her bouquet, like the circlet about her head and all the centerpieces at the reception, was made of synthetic white roses that felt and smelled like the real thing.

  Amy’s smile could have landed a starship.

  Keeping her eyes straight ahead, Amy set a slow pace, allowing the guests to gawk and snap pictures on their datapads. She practically glowed.

  Esper’s eyes misted, but she kept glancing to the back of the crowd for signs of latecomers. For all the numbers this wedding had drawn, there were notable absences. Carl could blow off an unpleasant truth as well as anyone alive, but he had to have noticed. It had to have hurt. Tanny refusing the invitation hadn’t been much of a surprise. Good sportsmanship only extended so far, after all. But Carl’s parents hadn’t come.

  Blotting that unpleasant undertone from her mind, Esper watched as a rabbi guided Carl and Amy through a tradition older than the English language. Times changed, but even the modern ceremony had remained largely the same for over three hundred years. Churches and synagogues held a much different definition of modern than the salesmen of datapads and holo-projectors.

  When it came time to exchange rings, Esper was probably one of the few attendees with a view that allowed her to spot Carl’s sleight of hand. With an alcoholic for a best man, even Carl knew better than to entrust him with the rings for long. He handed them to the laaku in the same gesture with which he accepted them back.

  “I now pronounce you man and wife,” the rabbi intoned.

  Carl didn’t need to be told that it was time to kiss the bride.

  The newly married couple walked arm in arm back down the aisle. Roddy eschewed the custom of doing likewise with the maid of honor. Esper wasn’t offended.

  In fact, if there was one overwhelming sensation that had cast a pall over the ceremony, it had been the unfilled expectation that something had to go wrong.

  What crew was this? Since when did things go as planned, especially when those plans were as haphazard and last minute as this wedding?

  # # #

  Carl had etched the ceremony into his mind in laser-engraved permacrete. That taken care of, he endeavored to turn the reception into a joyous haze of beer-soaked celebration.

  The band was a bunch of pros. They could play everything, and they took requests. Most guys with a Pan-Amp don’t know what to do with it, but the sound tech set up to mimic everything from country twang to the Early Data synth of Rush and The Who and everything in between. Vocals aside, they could have been a tribute band to half the groups they covered. Where Amy had found them, Carl couldn’t say, but they were phenomenal. The only rule for the reception was a strict limit on the time period from 1965 through 1989.

  Carl took the first dance with Amy. It was slow and sweet, and the only exception to the date range the whole night. After that, the party cut loose.

  Tuxedos lost their bow ties. Suit coats lay discarded over the backs of chairs. Uncomfortable dress shoes gave way to socks and stockings.

  The food was just appetizer platters, but the bar was open, so nobody noticed. At first, Carl’s bank account winced with each drink served, but after the first couple of his own, he stopped caring.

  There wasn’t a chrono anywhere in the reception hall. Time wasn’t welcome. Carl and Amy danced and laughed, caught up on old times with people they hadn’t seen since the service or had parted with on bittersweet terms.

  Amy introduced him to a few of her friends from flight school and one of her high school teachers. Carl made a few introductions to old navy buddies from before Squadron 333 formed and downplayed the careers of Earl and Jimmy Rucker in front of the navy guys when they met her.

  “Smartest thing you ever did, dummy,” Juggler congratulated Carl, offering a drunken hug before rejoining the dancing.

  “You be good to her, Blackjack,” Vixen warned. “She’s still one of us.”

  “I heard about New Garrelon,” Samurai said to Carl in a quiet moment. “Commendable. You showed great wisdom and restraint.”

  Carl could have debated that, but six beers suggested a hug and an offer to rejoin the crew. Samurai politely declined, but there wasn’t the judgmental undertone of their last meeting.

  Rhiannon and Michelle found Carl after he finished dancing to “Twist and Shout.” “Hey, glad you two could make it!” he shouted over the music.

  The two younger Ramseys crowded close. “My brother getting married and not to the same psychopath?” Rhiannon asked. “How could I resist.”

  Michelle crushed him in a hug. “I’m proud of you, big bro. Me and Rhi had a running bet whether our first niece or nephew would have a dad.”

  “Oh, thanks a lot!” Carl griped good-naturedly. In truth, he was probably only 90 percent sure he hadn’t left some girl out there with one of his kids and never known. His younger days had been chaotic,
and his mental file server held a lot of beer-corrupted sectors.

  “Hey, I was the one on your side,” Michelle said. Rhiannon shrugged, acknowledging her guilt. “I knew you were like dad at heart, a gigaton of bluster over a family man’s heart.”

  But Chuck hadn’t been enough of a family man to show up to his own son’s wedding. Granted, it was his fourth, but they were still a bigger deal than the thirty-three birthdays, and Carl often at least got a comm for those. Becky was supposed to have sorted him out and gotten the stubborn old mule to play nice for a day.

  “Excuse me,” Carl said to his sisters. He needed to get his mind off Ramseys just then. There was only one Ramsey he wanted on his mind, and that was the one who hadn’t even decided yet whether or not she was changing her name.

  Carl took the stage, and the music tapered off. He borrowed a weapon from the lead guitarist and took an experimental strum. Eyes around the room turned their attention toward him.

  He turned to the band. “I heard you boys are good.” There were a series of humble assurances in reply. “Follow my lead and cover up any mistakes along the way.” Walking up to the mic, he tapped to make sure it was live. “Hey, everyone. Thank you all for coming out. This has been one helluva night, but it’s just a warm-up to what life’s got in store. But none of it would be possible without the galaxy’s greatest woman. This one is for you, Amy.”

  Carl pursed his lips and fought through the opening notes of “In My Life” before the band caught on and joined in. By the time he began singing, revisionist history had kicked in, and, like prophets, The Beatles had written the whole song about Amy, 564 years before she was born.

  # # #

  Esper tried to enjoy the reception. She drank just a little, so as not to drunkenly perform any magic by accident. There was no shortage of partners looking to take the maid of honor out for a spin on the dance floor. She was propositioned no fewer than four times, politely turning down advances that ranged from the oblique to the lurid. Every time a new appetizer platter went by, she tried at least one sample. None of them were especially tasty, but the experience was worth the effort.