“Your dad is quite something,” I tell her. “You won’t believe all the things he’s done for you. And for me. But I’ll tell you all of it when you’re old enough. It’s kind of PG.”
“Bababa,” she says sincerely, reaching one little hand out toward the ocean.
“Exactly.” I hoist her higher. “Oh, you’re getting heavy. Did you seriously grow in the time I was gone? You know that was only a couple of days at most, right?”
“Glufffabaaaba,” she explains.
I nod. “Oh. I see. It’s not that I mind it. Chiefs should be big. And better than that Smirt’ax guy. Maybe one day you’ll be a real chief? Feels like it’s about time a girl got to rule a tribe.”
Kenz’ox rinses off and comes up to us. “That was nice. Dorie, I wonder about something.”
“Oh?”
“The old shaman talked about something many years ago. About what to do when we meet The Woman. And when our women are returned to us from the Ancestors. He said it was possible for one man to claim one woman for himself, and that woman then also could claim the man. He called it ‘marriage.’”
“Did he?” It’s one of the words Cora taught us in the caveman language, and it’s one I’ve been thinking about, too, very recently.
He squeezes water out of his thick beard. “Do you have something like it on Earth?”
“We have something like it, yes. Why?” I act all innocent, although I’m getting excited despite the exhaustion.
“Because I would love to do that with you. To claim you as mine. And then you claim me as yours, if you want. It should be done in front of a tribe and a shaman, to show everyone, but we don’t have those things.”
“Do we need them? We have Dex and Otis. Maybe they are enough. And we have a little chief right here.”
His face brightens. “Yes! Perhaps no shaman is needed. Do you want to?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Do I want to what?”
He frowns. “Do you want tomarry me?”
29
–Kenz’ox–
“Yes,” I state loudly. “I do.”
The Envoy asks Dorie the same question, calling her “Theodora Reyes” instead of Dorie. But she has explained to me that that is her full name and that I can still call her Dorie.
“I do,” she replies.
“Then by the power vested in me by the two of you, I hereby declare you married. Husband and wife,”the Envoy says with its unpleasant voice. “That concludes the ceremony.”
“You can kiss me,” Dorie says softly, dark eyes shiny as she looks up at me.
I bend down and place a light kiss on her soft lips, because this doesn’t seem to be the time to kiss her in the way I really want, deeply and fully.
“So now we’re married?” I ask, for certainty.
“As married as anyone can be on Xren,” Dorie says. “The women in the Borok tribe are married, too. By a shaman in their tribe, but Dex is better. Have you recorded it all, Dex?”
“I recorded it in infrared, visible light, and with full audio,”the Envoy says, using some alien words I don’t know. “The visible-light one might be blurry, but the infrared recording should be clear.”
“That’s all we ask,” Dorie says with satisfaction. “An infrared recording of the vows is tradition.”
I’m somewhat confused, but I’m also very happy. “Ah. Yes, of course.”
We chose to simply do it the next day, after we had gathered our wits and rested after our deadly adventures. We both wanted it, and there was no reason to wait. The Envoy was willing to act as shaman, and then we were ready. Apparently the Envoy is something called a ‘drone’, which is an alien thing that’s both alive and not. In the same way Dorie claimed that the ocean was both a lake and not. It’s a very alien way to state it.
