A Rising Thunder

and beautified with his presence and first miracle that he wrought in Cana of Galilee, and is commended of St. Paul to be honorable among all men: and therefore is not by any to be entered into unadvisedly or lightly; but reverently, discreetly, advisedly, soberly, and in fear of God. Into this holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined. If any man can show just cause why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else here ever after forever hold his peace.”

The ancient, ancient simple words spilled out into the hushed, listening silence, and Honor Alexander- Harrington reached out, as well. She touched Hamish’s mind-glow as he stood close beside her and Emily’s mind- glow, where her life support chair sat at the end of the front pew on the bride’s side of the cathedral. She reached out further, touching her mother and feeling the happiness within her. Touching her father, and tasting the pain still burning at his core…and the healing sifting down to it, as it sifted down to her own, borne upon those ageless, joyous words. The entire cathedral was filled to the bursting point not simply with human bodies, but with human minds, and thoughts, and hopes, and joy. It pressed in upon her from every side, soaking into her like the sea, but this was a sea of light, of energy — of focus and purpose and promise. It flowed into her like the sun itself, and tears starred her vision as she found herself wishing desperately that everyone else in that cathedral could have tasted and known what she tasted and knew in that moment.

* * *

“I’ve been to some remarkable weddings in my time,” Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou said, “but this one…”

He waved his champagne glass at the glittering crowd thronging the grounds of Mount Royal Palace. Security was tight, and treecats were much in evidence. Many of them rode on shoulders threaded throughout that crowd, and others—dozens of others — perched cheerfully on the branches of landscaped trees, on ornamental gazebos and roofs. They could be heard every now and then, even through the steady surf of human voices and the music of the live orchestra, bleeking to one another as they enjoyed the human mind-glows swirling about them like rich, heady wine. But there was a perpetually poised, ready watchfulness even in the midst of their delight, and armed air cars and sting ships loitered overhead while the personnel of half a dozen star nations’ security watched the ’cats like miners watching canaries in some ancient coal mine.

No one at the reception could possibly tune out that omnipresent security, yet most of the guests had become accustomed to their guardians’ presence. There might be new wrinkles to the threats those guardians were deployed to counter, but there would always be threats and no one was prepared to let that awareness dampen this day.

Honor had finally managed to slip away to steal a few moments with her uncle and her family. She’d given her matron of honor’s speech, and with the assistance of scores of personnel from Dame Arethea’s office, she’d made sure the thousands of wedding gifts Rivka and Roger had received had all been properly stored and labeled. Rivka had announced her intention of sending personal thank you notes for every single one of them, and Honor felt sure the redoubtable young woman would do exactly that…however long it took.

With that task out of the way, she’d disappeared with Rivka long enough to help her change out of her wedding gown and into the equally expensive (and equally simple yet elegant) formal court dress badged in Winton blue and silver to which she was now entitled. Of course, Honor’s “help” had consisted mainly of offering moral support as Rivka looked forward to her very first day as the Crown Princess Consort of Manticore. It would have been unfair to say Rivka had experienced a case of cold feet at the prospect, but her toes had definitely felt the chill as she prepared to shoulder the public responsibilities which would be hers for the rest of her life.

Honor had felt the way the young woman braced herself, straightening metaphysical shoulders to bear up under that burden. And as she had, she’d realized that one of the reasons Rivka had been so strongly drawn to her was that Honor, too, had been born of yeoman stock. Neither of them had ever dreamed, during their childhood, of ascending to such dizzying heights, and as she’d tasted Rivka’s trepidations surging once more, she’d put an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders in a brief, comforting hug.

“It’s not so bad, really,” she’d said, and Rivka had turned her head to give her a smile that was ever so slightly lopsided.

“Are my willies that obvious?”

“Well, I do hang around with treecats, you know,” Honor had replied with a smile of her own. “For that matter, I didn’t exactly start out in this crowd myself.”

“Your mother did, though,” Rivka had pointed out.

“Yep, and she ran away from it with indecent haste as soon as she got the opportunity. And I promise you, she didn’t bring me up to be queen of the ball, either!” Honor had snorted with amusement at the very thought. “I’m not saying it didn’t help — some — to be descended from the Benton-Ramirez y Chou family, but I never saw any of this coming until Benjamin dumped the steadholdership on me. And then the Queen — your mother-in-law, now that I think about it — decided to open up her toy box!” She’d shaken her head. “Believe me, it’s survivable. And that the reason you’re here today, married to Roger, is because of who you are, Rivka, not what you are or what anyone expects you to be.” She smiled again, more gently. “You just go on being you, and you’re going to do fine. Trust me.”

Now, as Honor looked across to where Roger and Rivka stood on the terrace, smiling easily, laughing as they chatted with one guest after another, she knew how right she’d been.

“It is an impressive guest list, I suppose, Jacques,” Hamish said now, his tone judicious.

“‘Impressive’?” another voice repeated. “What? Is that your studied understatement of the day?”

Honor turned with a chuckle as a life support chair slid up beside her.

“I think it’s probably as good a description as Uncle Jacques’s ‘remarkable,’ Emily,” she said. “And you have to remember the source. Neither of is all that good with the language, you know.”

“You’ll pay for that later,” Hamish promised her with a devilish glint, and Nimitz bleeked a laugh on Honor’s shoulder.

“I await the moment with trepidation,” Honor told her husband sweetly, then turned back to her uncle. “However, I have to say that in your own language-challenged ways, you’re both right. I wonder if there’s ever been a wedding quite like it?”

“I doubt it,” Emily said. “In fact, I’m pretty darn sure there hasn’t been one like it since the Diaspora got everybody off Old Earth, anyway! Let’s see, we’ve got the Empress of Manticore, the President of the Republic of Haven, the Protector of Grayson, the Chairman of the Beowulf Board of Directors, Queen Berry, and the Andermani Emperor’s first cousin. Not to mention your own humble self as Steadholder Harrington and the commander of the Grand Fleet, followed by a scattering of mere planetary grand dukes, dukes, Earls, members of the Havenite cabinet, three other members of the Beowulf Board of Directors, the chairman of the Alliance joint chiefs of staff, the First Space Lord, the Havenite chief of naval operations, the Beowulfan chief of naval operations, High Admiral Yanakov, Admiral Yu, two or three dozen ambassadors, and God alone only knows who else. I’m sure there’ve been other weddings that had the same guest count or better, but bringing all of these people together in one place?”

She shook her head, and Honor found herself nodding in agreement.

“I wish those cretins in Old Chicago could see this,” her uncle said in a much more somber tone. She raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged. “They still just don’t get it. I think the true problem is that nobody outside their own little world is actually quite real to them. We’re all just inconveniently obstreperous tokens they’re moving around on a game board somewhere. All that really matters is that damned echo chamber they live in.”

“That’s how we got into this mess,” Hamish agreed, “but I’ll guarantee you there are some other sounds leaking into that ‘echo chamber’ of yours by now, Jacques! They don’t like it, and they’re trying to stuff their fingers into their ears, but they can’t keep it up much longer.”

“They’ve kept it up long enough to leave all of us one hell of a mess to clean up,” Benton-Ramirez y Chou replied, and Hamish nodded.

“No argument there. The question in my mind is how long they’re going to be able to stay on the back of the hexapuma. I think they’ve pretty much demonstrated that they’re determined to go on trying to game the situation until the ship sinks under them. But when that happens, when someone else steps into their place, how’s that