The Road to Damascus (bolo)

by John Ringo

  Kafari kissed his dark, sweat-dampened hair and knew that whatever happened tomorrow, nothing in her life would ever be the same, again. And this time, the difference between then and now was so wonderfully sweet, she lay awake for a long, long time, just savoring it.

  II

  Simon was nervous. So nervous, he had to dry both palms against his uniform trousers. It was, Kafari had assured him, a small wedding — small, at least, by Granger standards — but the crowd on Balthazar and Maarifa Soteris’ front lawn looked to Simon like an entire small town had emptied itself for the occasion. Just family, huh? he thought, staring at the sea of strangers who’d come to witness their vows. He hadn’t realized just how big a family he was about to acquire.

  Wind ruffled his hair and sighed through the treetops. The sunlight poured down the high, rose-colored cliffs like warmed honey, spilling joyously across green fields and orchards heavy with fruit and half-grown calves playing chase in the nearest pasture. Simon breathed in the scent of flowers and living, growing things all around him… then Kafari appeared and everything else faded from his awareness. His throat and groin tightened, just looking at her. The cream-colored dress she wore set her skin aglow. Tiny wildflowers adorned her hair. A strand of pearls, harvested from her family’s own ponds, lay nestled against her throat, their luster dim compared with the brilliance of her eyes as she caught sight of him.

  She moved slowly forward, one hand resting lightly on her father’s arm. Simon swallowed hard. He still couldn’t quite believe she’d said yes. The welcome her family had given him still astonished Simon. He was an outsider, totally unfamiliar with their customs, yet they had made him one of them from the very beginning, greeting him with such warmth, he knew that finally, after a lifetime of solitude, he had found a place to call home. These people would be his family, in a way unique in his whole life.

  Kafari’s mother watched through streaming eyes as her daughter moved slowly between the rows of chairs toward him. Iva Soteris Camar was a small woman, slender and shorter than her daughter, with the kind of face Helen of Troy must have possessed by the end of the Trojan War, the beauty that had launched a thousand ships tempered by the agonies of war. She had lost two sons, had lost cousins and other relatives, neighbors and close friends. The pain of those losses was etched into her face, but her chin was up and the joy of seeing her daughter wed shone in her eyes, alongside the grief that her family was not complete, to watch it with her.

  Simon was a little in awe of Iva Camar.

  As for Zak Camar… His was a face carved by wind and sunlight and adversity, but there were laugh lines, as well, and a solid strength that reminded Simon of trees whose gnarled trunks had seen five hundred years pass by since their roots had first dug into the ground. At their first meeting, Zak Camar had sized up Simon through hooded eyes, apparently possessing an instinctual radar that told him “this man’s sleeping with your little girl — and if he doesn’t measure up, he’s gonna walk off this farm missing some body parts.” Zak Camar’s good opinion meant rather a lot to Simon, and not just because he wanted his body to remain intact.

  Zak’s dark eyes were suspiciously moist as he placed Kafari’s hand in Simon’s. Her fingers trembled, but her smile was radiant, hitting Simon like a blow to the gut. They turned to face the officiant, a tall, broad woman with dark eyes and a gentle smile. She spoke softly, but her voice carried a long way.

  “We are here today to share the creation of a new family,” she began, “a family that will forever be a part of the families from which it is descended. Some of those folks are here today and share this creation joyously. Some of them aren’t, except in spirit and memory, folks who defended this land we stand on and folks who defended worlds so far away, we can’t even see their stars, at night.”

  Simon’s throat tightened savagely. He hadn’t known she was going to say that.

  Kafari’s fingers tightened against his, causing his eyes to burn even as a wave of love rolled through him. The officiant paused, as though making sure he was all right before she continued, then nodded to herself and went on.

  “All these families have different customs, different beliefs, different ways of worshiping, but they all share one thing in common. A belief that the joining of a man and woman is a sacred thing, to be done solemnly with proper ceremony, and joyously, with proper celebration. That’s why we’re here today, for the ceremony and the celebration as this man, Simon Khrustinov, and this woman, Kafari Camar, create a new family together.” In a soft whisper, she asked, “You got the rings, son?”

  Simon dug into the breast pocket of his uniform, produced the twin rings. He handed one to Kafari, held the other in unsteady fingertips.

  “All right, son, repeat after me…”

  Simon spoke the words in a hushed voice, to the woman who constituted Simon’s whole universe in that moment. “I, Simon Khrustinov, do vow that I will love and guard you, provide for you and our children whether rich or poor, will care for you in sickness and health, will forsake all others and seek only you, so long as our lives endure.”

  Tears shone in Kafari’s eyes as she, too, repeated the vow. Simon slipped the ring onto her finger, his voice almost a whisper. “Let all who see this ring know that you are now and forever my wife, Kafari Khrustinova.”

  “And let all who see this ring,” Kafari murmured, slipping the matching band onto his finger, “know that you are now and forever my husband, Simon Khrustinov.”

  Simon lost himself in the warmth of her eyes, was jolted out of the reverie when the officiant chuckled and said, “You can kiss her whenever you like, son.”

  He groaned aloud and pulled her close, kissed her gently, was shocked by the roar from the watchers as Kafari’s family applauded and whistled and tossed hats into the air and discharged what sounded like gunfire, but might have been only fireworks. Kafari broke loose just long enough to grin up at him. She winked. “You’re well and truly caught, now, husband. There’s no wriggling off this hook.”

  “Huh. You just try getting rid of this fish.”

  She kissed him again, then they turned and found Kafari’s parents holding a broom decorated with fluttering ribbons and flowers, laid horizontally across the aisle between the chairs. They ran forward, hands joined, and Kafari’s parents lowered the broom to the ground just as they reached it. They jumped the broomstick and ran a gauntlet of wildflowers and grain tossed at them from either side of the aisle. By the time they reached the end, they were laughing like children. The guests filed past in an endless parade, with hugs and handshakes and words of welcome. Simon lost count of them early on, knew it would take weeks just to memorize names and faces of the people who now constituted his relatives.

  By the time the last guest had filed past, Simon’s hand felt like it had been mauled, but he couldn’t stop grinning. They followed Kafari’s parents and grandparents into the side yard, where Grandma and Grandpa Soteris had set up tables full of food. Tubs full of ice cooled down bottles of everything from local beer and wine to fruity carbonated drinks and a couple of things Simon had never even heard of, but which tasted great. A grassy area big enough for Sonny’s immense warhull had been marked off with fluttering ribbons. Music floated on the warm summer wind. Kafari led Simon out into the middle of the grassy dance floor and they began their wedding dance.

  For the first verse, they danced alone. Then other couples joined them and pretty soon, the whole space was filled. After their first dance together, Zak Camar danced with Kafari and Simon danced with Iva, then the group dances began, complex circle dances and call-sets that Simon struggled through with much embarrassment and lots of good-natured laughter, since even the five-year-olds knew the steps better than he did. They finally broke away and gulped down mouthfuls of some of the best food Simon had tasted on any world. They fed one another while family members took photos and ran mini vid-cams, immortalizing their first meal together.

  They danced some more, then went through the obligatory c
ake-cutting, champagne toast from a double cup, bouquet toss. Simon would have preferred — vastly — to spend the next week or so opening the mountain of wedding gifts piled onto six groaning tables. Unfortunately, Granger custom called for the bride and groom to open everything while everyone was there. It was considered an insult not to open a gift immediately.

  So he and Kafari settled onto chairs and started opening packages, while Iva Camar jotted down descriptions of each gift alongside the names of those to be thanked. Simon had never heard the superstition that the number of ribbons broken while opening boxes presaged the number of children to be born into the new family. Naturally, no one told him until he had a pile of broken ribbons deep enough to cover both feet.

  “You’re kidding?” he said faintly when one of the aunts — he couldn’t remember which — finally broke the news.

  Laughter enfolded them, warm and full of sympathy.

  Kafari just grinned. Notably, there wasn’t a single broken ribbon in her pile. She winked as if to say, “I knew you’d break quite enough for the both of us, dear,” and kept opening packages. By the time they’d finished, the afternoon was far enough advanced, it was time to begin the wedding supper. The hors d’oeuvres had been whisked away, replaced by steaming dishes that sent mouth-watering aromas wafting through the slanting afternoon sunlight. To his surprise, Simon was escorted to a set of tables reserved exclusively for the men of the family, while the women grouped around another cluster of tables, and the children occupied a third set, with strategically placed teenagers to supervise the toddlers and settle disputes amongst the little ones.

  Simon found himself sitting beween Zak Camar and Balthazar Soteris. Some sort of blessing was spoken out by Balthazar, in a language that sounded to Simon like genuine Greek, then the dishes were passed around and they dug in with hearty appetites. At length, Balthazar broke the companionable silence.

  “You’ll be living in your quarters at Nineveh Base?”

  Simon nodded, chewing and swallowing before he answered. “Yes. There’s plenty of room. If necessary, I can build an extension to add new rooms.”

  “You can afford that?”

  Simon glanced into the tough old man’s eyes, trying to decide what question, precisely, he had asked. “If I have to, yes. My salary comes directly from the Brigade, not Jefferson’s planetary coffers, for one thing. The government’s obligated under treaty to provide me with suitable quarters, but if things look too grim to justify using Jefferson’s public funds to expand my quarters — and just now, I’m afraid things don’t look good at all — I certainly have the means to build a nursery or two, myself.”

  Balthazar and Zak exchanged a long glance that told Simon he’d succeeded in answering the right question, then Zak said, “From where we sit, things look mighty grim. If we don’t get weather satellites up, at least, before harvest time, we could lose a lot of crops to bad weather. And the summer storm season’s coming, which could spell trouble fast, if we can’t properly track those storms.”

  Simon nodded, wondering how much to say, then decided these folks ought to know at least some of the raw truth. “From a system-defense standpoint, if we don’t replace the warning and defense platforms the Deng blew out of orbit, we could get caught with our shorts down, even worse this time. The Deng would be bad enough, coming through the Void again. God help us if the Melconians decide to come calling.”

  The men exchanged glances that said, “Yep, we figured as much,” dark glances that appreciated the confirmation of their own take on the situation, even as those glances slid inevitably to the womenfolk and children at the other tables. Simon’s glance rested on Kafari, radiant as she talked with her mother and aunts and cousins, and felt a chill touch his own heart. He was no stranger to that kind of fear, but for once in his life, he was in the midst of others who felt exactly the same thing, for exactly the same reasons — and for exactly the same people, as well. It was a kind of belonging new to him, a bittersweet feeling that lessened his loneliness while giving him even more people to worry about defending — and to hurt for, if things turned bad, again.

  Zak Camar, whose eyes reflected the pain of losing two sons, broke the dark and ugly silence. “We got more to worry about than just the satellites and the weather. No sense hiding from a truth, just because it smells like a dead jaglitch rotting in the sun. Taxes are up, too high by a long shot, to pay for all the rebuilding. We have more than a million people out of work. And we’ve got more companies going belly up, every day. A business can’t make payroll if it can’t manufacture or obtain raw materials or sell what’s sitting in its warehouses.”

  Balthazar Soteris added in a harsh voice, “And a worker laid off and scraping by on government subsistence can’t afford what we’ll have to charge for the crops in those fields, come the harvest.” He nodded toward the Soteris fields, green and lovely beyond the supper tables and dance floor. “Not if we hope to have enough money to plant again next year and put more acreage into terraforming. The government’s already depleted almost a quarter of the food reserves in the emergency system, reserves it took several years to build. We can’t feed the whole population of this planet indefinitely on the reserves. We have to terraform more acreage, particularly in the southern hemisphere, where the growing season’s timed to put fresh produce on the tables during winter up here.”

  Zak added quietly, “We’re short on agricultural labor, too. If we don’t start sending some of those unemployed factory workers into the fields…” He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to, since every man at this large table knew exactly what would happen if there weren’t enough workers to plant and harvest. Mechanical harvesters were fine, if you had them, but the Deng had blown most of them to slag. Simon eyed the heavily laden tables and wondered how many folks would be tightening their belts this winter. He was abruptly very glad his bride was related to farmers. Unless the government was forced into the drastic move of confiscating private food stores for redistribution, at least his wife and their children wouldn’t run the risk of severe rationing that the unemployed townsfolk could well face.

  Simon knew enough about the history of Russia, back on Old Terra, to understand with brutal clarity — sharpened by his own long experience of war — just what could happen to a society in which there weren’t enough people on hand to plant and harvest. Even at the vast remove of centuries and many, many light-years, the old stories handed down from generation to generation about needing prescriptions from physicians to obtain meat for children, or eating wallpaper paste to hold off starvation, had the power to clench Simon’s gut muscles.

  “If they get hungry enough,” one of the younger men said, “they can always enlist in the Concordiat defense forces and help us meet our treaty obligations.”

  “Huh,” Zak muttered. “Not likely. There’s already a whole passel of folk grumbling about sending troops off-world to support the war effort.”

  Simon was only too aware of the situation. By treaty, a Concordiat-allied world was entitled to defense. It was also obligated, under reciprocity agreements, to provide troops and/or munitions and materiel if the Concordiat found itself embroiled in a war that threatened multiple worlds. Between the mess along the Deng border and the utter disaster unfolding along a broad arc of humanity’s border with Melconian space, nearly forty human colonies had already been swept into the fighting. A whole lot of that fighting was brutal enough, Jefferson’s invasion paled by comparison.

  The Concordiat was invoking reciprocity agreements on every world in the Sector, including Jefferson, Mali, and Vishnu. He suspected Mali’s obligations would be met by providing raw materials needed to carry out the war effort, but Vishnu and Jefferson were relatively mineral poor, which meant their likeliest treaty export would be soldiers and technicians. Vishnu could contribute food, but Jefferson couldn’t afford to ship any of its produce, grains, or Terran meat off-world. There were a lot of grumbles on the datanet and the streets, and Jefferson’s Assembly — Senate
and House of Law — hadn’t even voted, yet, on whether or not to honor the treaty. If they refused to honor it…

  Simon’s supper turned leaden in his belly. He’d be called off-world, for sure. And that would leave Kafari torn between her marriage and her family. He couldn’t imagine that she’d be very happy sitting in some officer’s quarters at Sector Command, talking to other home-bound spouses to pass the time while waiting for word as to whether or not he’d been killed in combat, yet. It wouldn’t be much easier, doing the same thing from home, surrounded by family but unable to see him between missions, simply because Jefferson was so difficult to reach from the current battle fronts, leaving too little time to travel all the way out here and back again.

  One of the younger men, a good-looking kid about nineteen or so, who could easily have posed for a sculpture of Hylas, broke through Simon’s grim reflections.

  “If the Senate and House of Law tell us to go, I’ll be on the first troop ship out. The bastards can’t threaten Jefferson again if we drive ’em back into their own space, tails tucked under.” He frowned, then, and glanced at Simon. “Do Deng have tails, sir? I was trapped in our barn, when it collapsed. Never even got to see any of the brutes.”

  Simon very carefully did not smile. “No, the Deng don’t have tails. But the Melconians do.”

  He brightened. “Good. We’ll shoot ’em off, sure enough.”