"Are you being nice to her, Pop?"
"What a question!" Whitey shifted uneasily, looking too big for the tiny, white-upholstered bride's room. "Don't worry about us, Yoke, things are better. I was bad, but I'm being good again. Anyway, it's me who should be asking you things. Like are you totally sure you want to marry Phil? I can get you out of it if you want." He cracked his scarred knuckles as if thinking about a fight.
"I'm doing this," said Yoke firmly. "Are you with me or not?"
"For sure." Whitey ran his hand back and forth over his head, fluffing his Mohawk. This was the first time Yoke had ever seen him wearing a shirt and suit coat, let alone a tuxedo. "I just thought it's the kind of thing a father's supposed to ask. Phil's a good man. And we've already paid for the room." He gave a grim chuckle. 'Might as well do it, then, before some dook sets off a bomb. How do we know when to march up the aisle?"
"When the music changes." And then it did.
" 'Here Comes the Bride,' " said Whitey, holding out his arm. In the little hallway, they found Babs and Stahn, coming out of their own dressing room. While Yoke's dress was a sleek sheath of silk with a tulle veil, Babs had gone "smart art"; her dress and hair were alive with slowly moving pearl DIM heads.
The Fairmont owners had alla-remodeled the top-floor hall-room with a gorgeous parquet wood floor and white silk-covered walls winking with little diamonds. There were dozens of floor-to-ceiling windows, all flung wide-open to let in the gentle June breeze. The sweetness of it caught in Yoke's throat. If only the world could stop its downward spiral. Five more cities had been blown up in the past four weeks.
The chairs were arranged so that the ballroom's aisle was double wide; that way Yoke, Whitey, Babs, and Stahn could walk up side by side, with nobody first and nobody second. Waiting up in front by the windows were Randy and Phil, standing on either side of--Cobb Anderson.
It had developed that none of the four betrothed had a close enough church affiliation to know of a particular minister to use. So Cobb had quickly picked up a gimmie justice-of-the-peace license and offered to perform the ceremony himself. The old man moldie claimed he was tired, but he still loved to put himself at the center of things. Randy was thrilled to be getting married by his great-grandfather, and Babs didn't mind. As for Yoke and Phil, they too were glad to have Cobb supervise this religious ceremony--for had not each of the three seen the same Divine SUN?
Though it was a beautiful service, the time seemed to pass in funny spurts. Everything was crawling while they were walking up the aisle. This was the part Yoke had always visualized as a little girl thinking about weddings. Walking up the aisle in your bridal gown. It was almost as if she could feel her own eyes watching her. The man at the end of the aisle had always been vague, but now, today, he was clear. Dear Phil. Then things speeded up, and suddenly Yoke and Phil were saying "I will" and "I do." Time all but stopped for the ring part and the kiss. Phil had a brand-new ring for Yoke, which was good. Babs and Randy's vows happened in fast-forward; Yoke didn't hear a word of them. And then they were walking out in slow motion and it felt to Yoke like something she had done a hundred times before.
The waiters cleared the chairs away and set out big tables that they filled with alla-made food; Phil and Babs had made up the designs for the wedding feast. Darla was one of the first to hug Yoke, and then Whitey and Joke. And then Yoke hugged Randy and Babs.
"We're married," laughed Babs. "It's going to be so fun." But there was a shrill edge to her gaiety. Disaster was stalking them all.
Everyone was there. Yoke's bridesmaid was Joke, of course, and Babs's was her art-gallery friend Kundry Asiz. Saint was Phil's best man, and Corey Rhizome served as Randy's.
Randy and Corey had taken quite a liking to each other over the last couple of weeks. One thing they had in common was that they were both really into garage-style limpware engineering. Corey even helped Yoke to finally get her imipolex coral working. Yoke's new thing this week was growing her reefs in air instead of water; she'd started using DIM gnats for the polyps. In fact yesterday she'd grown a fabulous organic-looking headboard for her and Phil's bed. It was a struggle to keep on doing things, with the murders and battles and bombing getting worse every day. But love and art still mattered; yes, they mattered more than hate and war.
The older generation at the wedding party included Darla and Whitey, Stahn and Wendy, Randy's father Willy Taze, Phil's mother Eve, and even Phil's stepmother Willow. Phil's Uncle Rex was there too, as well as his grandmother Isolde and his great-aunt Hildegarde, who had the most astonishing face. They all thought Yoke was wonderful, and said they'd known she was perfect for Phil when they'd seen him talking to her at poor Kurt's funeral. Oh, and Randy's new aunt Delia Taze had turned up from San Diego, mainly to see Willy. Delia had brought her mother along, seventy-nine-year-old Use, a bit wobbly and sour, but Cobb Anderson's daughter nonetheless. Cobb was overwhelmed to see her. Among the younger guests, Terri and Tre Dietz had come up from Santa Cruz with their kids Dolf and Wren, who were loving it. In honor of the happy day--and who knew how many more happy days there would be? -- Randy and the Dietzes even made friends, with apologies and forgiveness all around. In fact little Wren was on the floor playing with Randy's plastic chicken Willa Jean. Aarbie Kidd hadn't been invited, but Theodore was there with a leather biker as his date. Derek and his dog Umberto had come with Kundry. There were plenty of others as well; in fact at the last minute, Yoke's friends Kandie and Cocole had even turned up from the Moon, they said they'd been wanting to visit Earth anyway, so why not now, before it was all blown up.
There were even a few moldies among the guests. Phil had asked Isis Snooks, who'd been such a help with his blimps, and Isis had brought along the flashy Thutmosis as her date. Wendy and Cobb each had a few moldie friends, and they were there too. Thanks to the stinkeater bug, mixing with moldies wasn't much of a problem anymore, so long as you had an open mind.
People were drinking champagne like there'd be no tomorrow, jabbering away like magpies, everyone jumping at every loud noise. In the last month, Dakar, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Belfast, Antwerp, and Paris had been hit by enormous bombs. Allas had repaired the buildings, but a lot of people had died. And just yesterday New York City had been bombed too. Everyone was on edge, waiting for the next thing to happen. And then it did.
"A flying saucer!" screamed Phil's mother, Eve. "Look out, Phil! Oh, what if they've come for you again!"
The saucer hanging outside the ballroom windows was a traditional metal disk with a dome in the middle. The Metamartians' ship.
"They can help us!" shouted Randy. "They can take away the allas!" The frames and sashes of the windows quivered as if water were passing over them, and then the saucer had slid through the wall and into the ballroom. It rested there, cocked a bit toward one side, just fitting between floor and ceiling. A radial line appeared along the curve of the central dome, and then a pie-shaped sector of the curved metal slid open. Out came eight figures: the seven Metamartians from before, plus a new one, a gray little shape like a bald girl with big, almond-shaped eyes.
Yoke sniffed at the air--yes, there was the scent of old-fashioned moldies. The Metamartians hadn't yet caught the stinkeater bug.
"We are here to salute the nuptials," said Shimmer, holding up her hands and making soothing gestures. "Please remain calm, dear friends. We come in peace, seeking your aid. I am Shimmer from Metamars, and my companions are Ptah, Peg, Josef, Siss, Wubwub, Haresh. As many of you know, it is we and our god Om who have brought mankind and moldies the alla. And our gift has been mediated by these four whose marriages you celebrate today: Yoke, Phil, Randy, and Babs. We too have a blessed event to rejoice in: the birth of our sevenfold daughter Lova." The gray little Lova bent her mouth up into a U-shaped smile and bowed, making flowing gestures with her long-fingered hands.