The priest repeated these vows to the Fortunati family and they agreed to abide by them.
Then Danan and the other children rose. The priest smiled.
“Anetta Rovainen, the Fortunati children have asked to adopt you as an honorary grandmother. Do you accept this?”
Anetta looked at the children, her eyes glittering with tears. “Yes, I do.”
The priest pronounced a final blessing and the music began. The children bent and picked up the thick garland of ti leaves and flowers that encircled the central dias, and held it up. Each member of the Fortunati family took hold of it, in order, from Eldest to youngest. The music started, and Eldest led the rest in a complex, stately wedding dance. Juna glanced up to see Ukatonen watching them, ears spread wide. She smiled at him, then turned back to the dance, lowering the garland to let Eldest’s end of the braid pass over hers. Soon she was lost in the careful, complex weaving of the wedding garland. At the end, the braid was so tight that the dancers had to squeeze past each other, amid much laughter and joking. Then the music ended and the dance was done. The garland was woven around each member of the family, tying them together in a single, unifying knot.
“Go now, as a united whole,” the priest said.
Carefully, gently, the family set the garland down and stepped out of the complex knot they had woven. Some of the leaves were crushed and broken, but it formed a tangible picture of a family’s unity.
The honeymoon was all too brief. After only a week spent settling in with her family, Juna and the Tendu boarded the shuttle bound for Copernicus City on Luna, where they would meet the diplomatic corps and begin a week-long series of briefings to prepare them for their visit to Earth. Juna laid her head against the seat back and closed her eyes. If only there had been more time. Leaving this soon after the marriage worried her. It reminded her too much of her first marriage. She didn’t want to destroy this marriage by spending too much time away.
She cradled her burgeoning belly with one hand. She was five months along. It was now or never. If she waited, it would be too late. Two months, and then she would be home again. Then nothing was going to pry her loose from home until the baby was weaned.
Moki touched her arm. “Look, siti, you can see the station through the viewport.”
Juna looked out the window. Berry Station gleamed against the empty black night, its red and green warning lights blinking against the rough stone exterior. Berry looked like one of last year’s potatoes from the outside, but it was home. She looked back at Moki and smiled.
“I miss it already,” she said.
“We’ll be back soon,” he told her.
Juna held out her arms, and the three of them linked. Ukatonen’s presence thrummed with excitement, belying his apparently calm exterior. Moki, too, was excited, but Juna felt a concern for her threading through his excitement. Juna soothed his concern and let the Tendu’s excitement buoy her up into exhilaration. Then she turned and reached for the tightly coiled presence of the baby, a flicker of sensation inside her, aware only of warmth and movement. She felt the familiar salty spark of neurons firing in the baby’s brain. The baby responded to her presence with a warm surge of curiosity. It moved its arm, and she felt the movement inside her womb. It was a strange and wondrous thing to feel the baby and its movement simultaneously. Gently she enfolded the baby in her presence for a few moments, then let Ukatonen, and then Moki enfold the baby within her.
Then they slid out of the link. Juna rested her hand on her belly, smiled, and slid into sleep.
Ukatonen left the briefing session, his brain heavy with a thick sludge of facts. There was so much to remember, so many countries, and each country was different! In some ways it was even harder than his enkar training had been. His self-confidence had been badly shaken by his inability to see the consequences of their work at the hospital. Was he really up to this task? He felt overwhelmed and alone. This was more than he could do by himself. If only there were another enkar here to share this burden.
A yellow flicker of irritation forked down one leg. Enough of these doubts. He was here, and he would do what needed to be done. And soon he would get to see an actual Earth rain forest. The Xavieras’ jungle had been small and incomplete, but it was enough to show him that the rain forests of Earth, for all the alienness of their life forms, had much the same ecology as those on Tiangi. He had viewed some of the humans’ tapes and laboriously plowed through several books on the subject. He had learned much more from Eerin and from Jacques Quanh Xaviera, the ecologist in charge of the Xavieras’ rain forest, than he had from the tapes and books. He could not ask questions of the books and tapes.
“That was a tough briefing,” Eerin remarked. “I’m looking forward to lunch. It’ll be nice to spend an hour stuffing my body instead of stuffing my brain.”
“You found it hard too?” Ukatonen asked, spreading his ears in surprise.
“Of course I did. They shoved an awful lot of stuff at us today.”
“But you know what a President is already. You understand human governments.”
Eerin smiled and shook her head. “I may know what a President is, but I can’t claim to understand government.”
She was making a joke, Ukatonen realized.
“There’s just so much to remember,” Ukatonen said, fighting to keep his words slow and calm. “I don’t want to make any mistakes.”
“Ukatonen,” Eerin said, “no one expects you to remember it all perfectly, and even if you did, someone else might forget. This is just to help prevent misunderstandings. The presidents and royalty you’ll be meeting are as worried about making mistakes as you are, and they know much less about your people than you know about us. Don’t worry, there will be people there to help remind us of what to do.”
“But I’m an enkar,” he insisted. “I should know what to do.”
“Ukatonen, this isn’t Tiangi. Everything here is new for you. In a situation like this even an enkar can make a mistake or two. Personally, I think you’ll do better than I will.”
“Really?” he said, surprised.
“En, I’ve never done anything like this before,” she told him. “You’ve spent hundreds of years visiting the chiefs of different villages. This isn’t really all that much different. There are different titles and ceremonies, but it’s the same basic situation. We’re just trying to make sure that you don’t do anything that wiil cause you or the leaders to lose face. That’s why they’re teaching us all this protocol. But we’re not visiting every single government on Earth. We’ve had to choose the ones that are the most important. So just by visiting them, you’ll be giving them status.”
“I see,” Ukatonen said. “Then why are we learning all of this?”
“Because these are the things that human diplomats must know. If the people you’re going to meet have a familiar framework in which to place you, they’ll feel more at ease.”
“But I’m not a human diplomat,” he pointed out.
Eerin nodded. “That’s why you don’t have to do everything perfectly.”
Ukatonen shook his head, more confused than ever. “I don’t understand.”
“Look, en,” Eerin said, “you’re an alien. They expect you to be different. They expect there to be misunderstandings and mistakes. There are misunderstandings and mistakes enough between humans from different cultures. That’s why we have all of this protocol in the first place. To prevent misunderstandings. Just do the best you can, and rely on me and the other members of the team to help out if you get confused. Trust us, okay?”
“All right,” he said. But I’m an enkar, he thought, and I’m not supposed to make mistakes. All of the truths that made up his world seemed to be crumbling away to nothing while he put on a brave front.