Robert Heinlein - Tunnel In The Sky

"I appreciate it, Jim," Carmen said softly. "I'll rub your back."

"Sold!" Jimmy lay face down.

"Hey!" protested Caroline. "I carried more rocks than he did. Mostly he stood aromid and bossed."

"Supervisory work is exceptionally tiring," Jimmy said smugly. "You get Bob to rub your back."

Neither got a back rub as Roy Kilroy called to them from the wall. "Hey! You down there- lunch hour is over. Let's get back to work."

"Sorry, Jimmy. Later." Carmen turned away.

Jimmy scrambled to his feet. "Bob, Carmen- don't go 'way yet. I want to say something."

They stopped. Rod waved to Kilroy. "With you in a moment!" He turned back to the others.

Jimmy seemed to have difficulty in choosing words. "Uh, Carmen... Bob. The future Baxters. You know we think a lot of you. We think it's swell that you are going to get married- every family ought to have a marriage. But... well, shopping isn't what it might be around here and we didn't know what to get you. So we talked it over and decided to give you this. It's from all of us. A wedding present." Jimmy jammed a hand in his pocket, hauled out his dirty, dog-eared playing cards and handed them to Carmen.

Bob Baxter looked startled. "Gosh, Jimmy, we can't take your cards-your only cards."

"I- we want you to have them."

"But-"

"Be quiet, Bob!" Carmen said and took the cards. "Thank you, Jimmy. Thank you very much. Thank you all." She looked around. "Our getting married isn't going to make any difference, you know. It's still one family. We'll expect you all... to come play cards... at our house just as-" She stopped suddenly and started to cry, buried her head on Bob's shoulder. He patted it. Jimmy looked as if he wanted to cry and Rod felt nakedly embarrassed.

They started back, Carmen with an arm around Jimmy and the other around her bethrothed. Rod hung back with the other two. "Did Jimmy," he whispered, "say anything to either of you about this?"

"No," Jacqueline answered.

"Not me," Caroline agreed. "I was going to give 'em my stew pan, but now I'll wait a day or two." Caroline's "bag of rocks" had turned out to contain an odd assortment for survival- among other things, a thin-page diary, a tiny mouth organ, and a half-litre sauce pan. She produced other unlikely but useful items from time to time. Why she had picked them and how she had managed to hang on to them after she discarded the bag were minor mysteries, but, as Deacon Matson had often told the class: "Each to his own methods. Survival is an art, not a science." It was undeniable that she had appeared at the cave healthy, well fed, and with her clothing surprisingly neat and clean in view of the month she had been on the land.

"They won't expect you to give up your stew pan, Caroline."

"I can't use it now that the crowd is so big, and they can set up housekeeping with it. Anyhow, I want to."

"I'm going to give her two needles and some thread. Bob made her leave her sewing kit behind in favor of medical supplies. But I'll wait a while, too."

"I haven't anything I can give them," Rod said miserably.

Jacqueline turned gentle eyes on him. "You can make them a water skin for their house, Rod," she said softly. "They would like that. We can use some of my KwikKure so that it will last."

Rod cheered up at once. "Say, that's a swell idea!"

"We are gathered here," Grant Cowper said cheerfully, "to join these two people in the holy bonds of matrimony. I won't give the usual warning because we all know that no impediment exists to this union. In fact it is the finest thing that could happen to our little community, a joyful omen of things to come, a promise for the future, a guarantee that we are firmly resolved to keep the torch of civilization, now freshly lighted on this planet, forever burning in the future. It means that-"

Rod stopped listening. He was standing at the groom's right as best man. His duties had not been onerous but now he found that he had an overwhelming desire to sneeze. He worked his features around, then in desperation rubbed his upper lip violently and overcame it. He sighed silently and was glad for the first time that Grant Cowper had this responsibility. Grant seemed to know the right words and he did not.

The bride was attended by Caroline Mshiyeni. Both girls carried bouquets of a flame-colored wild bloom. Caroline was in shorts and shirt as usual and the bride was dressed in the conventional blue denim trousers and overshirt. Her hair was arranged en brosse; her scrubbed face shone in the firelight and she was radiantly beautiful.

"Who giveth this woman?"

Jimmy Throxton stepped forward and said hoarsely, "I do!"

"The ring, please."

Rod had it on his little finger; with considerable fumbling he got it off. It was a Ponce de Leon senior-class ring, borrowed from Bill Kennedy. He handed it to Cowper.

"Carmen Eleanora, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband, to have and to hold, for better and for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do you part?"

"I do."

"Robert Edward, do you take this woman to be your lawfully wedded wife? Will you keep her and cherish her, cleaving unto her only, until death do you part?"

"I do. I mean, I will. Both."

"Take her hand in yours. Place the ring on her finger. Repeat after me- Rod's sneeze was coming back again; he missed part of it.

"-so, by authority vested in me as duly elected Chief Magistrate of this sovereign community, I pronounce you man and wife! Kiss her, chum, before I beat you to it."

Carol and Jackie both were crying; Rod wondered what had gone wrong. He missed his turn at kissing the bride, but she turned to him presently, put an arm around his neck and kissed him. He found himself shaking hands with Bob very solemnly. "Well, I guess that does it. Don't forget you are supposed to carry her through the door."

"I won't forget."

"Well, you told me to remind you. Uh, may the Principle bless you both."

There was no more talk of leaving. Even Caroline dropped the subject.

But on other subjects talk was endless. Cowper held a town meeting every evening. These started with committee reports- the committee on food resources and natural conservation, the committees on artifacts and inventory, on waste disposal and camp sanitation, on exterior security, on human resources and labor allotment, on recruitment and immigration, on conservation of arts and sciences, on constitution, codification, and justice, on food preparation, on housing and city planning- Cowper seemed to enjoy the endless talk and Rod was forced to admit that the others appeared to have a good time, too- he surprised himself by discovering that he too looked forward to the evenings. It was the village's social life, the only recreation. Each session produced wordy battles, personal remarks and caustic criticisms; what was lacking in the gentlemanly formality found in older congresses was made up in spice. Rod liked to sprawl on the ground with his ear near Jimmy Throxton and listen to Jimmy's slanderous asides about the intelligence, motives, and ancestry of each speaker. He waited for Caroline's disorderly heckling.

But Caroline was less inclined to heckle now; Cowper had appointed her Historian on discovering that she owned a diary and could take shorthand. "It is extremely important," he informed her in the presence of the village, "that we have a full record of these pioneer days for posterity. You've been writing in your diary every day?"

"Sure. That's what it's for."

"Good! From here on it will be an official account. I want you to record the important events of each day."

"All right. It doesn't make the tiniest bit of difference, I do anyhow."

"Yes, yes, but in greater detail. I want you to record our proceedings, too. Historians will treasure this document, Carol."