The registrar stared at them. Certainly they were unlike any couple he had ever seen before, and he had seen thousands upon thousands of couples. He had seen couples from every corner of the known universe, and occasionally some that seemed to have come from beyond, and no combination unnerved him quite as much as this.
He swallowed and stared down at the registry and accompanying certificate. Normally, people scheduled these appointments weeks and months in advance and planned an accompanying ceremony. These two had just walked off the street with a pair of witnesses. The rest of the Winowa's chapel was otherwise empty. It was a beautiful chapel: carved from natural stone with bone-white columns, fresh flowers along the rows of chairs, and a beautiful sculpture of a Risian man and woman intertwined set behind the altar.
Lorca and Lalana did almost sort of look the part. Lorca's clothes from before had been stiff with sea salt, so he'd changed into a polo shirt, dinner jacket, and pants. Lalana had borrowed a lace table runner from Sollis and turned it into a very fetching veil-shawl-cowl combination which was rendered largely moot by the additional modification of turning herself white, too.
"And then we can get a room?" asked Lorca.
The registrar looked over at Sollis and Caxus. Occasionally tourists would wander in and not understand the importance and function of the Winowa, but there was no way two native Risians misunderstood the sanctity of the institution. Maybe they had been trying to be hospitable and it had gotten out of hand. "You understand this is a once-in-a-lifetime, legally binding marriage?"
"Yep," said Lorca, with a level of irreverence that would not have seemed out of place at the circus he and Lalana seemed to have escaped from.
Lalana stretched up and grabbed hold of the edge of the registrar's lectern. "You have to let us get married. We will report you to the authorities if you don't! We have two witnesses and we have traveled very far to do this! I have come all the way from the Delta Quadrant!"
"That she has," said Lorca.
"And if you do not marry us, my people will come from the Delta Quadrant and invade your planet and destroy your entire Federation! A slight against me is a slight against the entire Lului Consortium of Star Warriors!"
Lorca almost burst out laughing and quickly started coughing to cover it up. "Also, I'm dying. Three months to live. That's why we couldn't plan this in advance."
"My poor darling!" trilled Lalana, curling her tail around Lorca's arm. "He is so sick, I know he tries to put on a brave face, but inside his cells are being eaten alive! Can you not see his pain?" Lorca coughed three more times.
The registrar looked again at Sollis and Caxus. Sollis had her hand over her mouth and Caxus was standing stock-still with his eyes fixed on a point somewhere off in the imaginary distance.
Lalana unhooked her tail from Lorca's arm and smacked it against the lectern twice as she said. "Marry us! Now! Or I'm calling the authorities! Also now!" Lorca abruptly started coughing again.
The registrar hesitated. Lorca saw his chance. He stopped coughing and went, "Look, this goes one of two ways. First way is you marry us, give us a room, and everyone gets what they want. The second, well, you don't marry us, we make a few angry calls to the tourism bureau, and the whole quadrant finds you refused to marry a dying man and the only alien of her species for fifty thousand light years. We only came here because we heard this was the most important place two people could get married. And when you only have three months left to live, you may as well do it right."
"Of course," said the registrar quickly, beginning to worry this wasn't some form of elaborate ruse. It might be the strangest circumstances he had ever encountered, but that didn't make it untrue. The front desk had sent them into the chapel, after all. And nothing on Risa was more important than hospitality. He hardly wanted them to come away with the impression that the Winowa, of all the hotels on Risa, was inhospitable. It would ruin their reputation. "I just need your names."
Lalana bounced slightly in excitement. "Eleanor!"
"How should that be spelled?" He looked at Lorca, figuring a Delta Quadrant alien wouldn't know an Alpha Quadrant alphabet, but Lalana answered.
"The usual way, of course. E-L-E-A-N-O-R."
The registrar immediately recognized it as a regular Earth name because he had encountered it before. "And the rest of your name?"
"That is my entire name."
Well, thought the registrar, there were instances of phonetically similar names appearing across alien cultures. It must simply be a case of coincidental convenience. "And your name?"
"Hayliel Lorla," Lorca said smugly. "Spelled exactly how it sounds."
The registrar looked at Sollis and Caxus for help. Both were now looking away, totally ignoring the unfolding scene. The registrar looked back down at the certificate. This was definitely a mistake. The alien had a human name and the human had an alien name. "Hey-li-ell Lor-la..."
"Yep, you got it," said Lorca, not even bothering to look down at what the registrar had written. (It turned out to be "Heyliell Lorla," which was close enough.) The registrar took down Sollis and Caxus's names and then all four signed the document, Lalana with Lorca's help. It was really a pretty bit of paper, decorated in fancy Risian script with an English translation of the Risian marriage vows.
The registrar affixed a seal to the bottom of the document. "Do you want any official words? Human or Risian or..." The poor registrar had no idea what to do with Lalana's "Consortium of Star Warriors."
"Human words please!" said Lalana enthusiastically.
It was a relief to the registrar, because he hardly wanted to perform this sham ceremony in Risian. He went with the nondenominational version, since Lorca did not clarify otherwise. "Please face each other. Do you... Hayliel Lorla... take this... woman... to be your wife, to have and to hold, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, from this day forth, until death do you part?"
As if to add insult to injury, Lorca went, "Yep."
"And do you, Eleanor, take this man... Hayliel..." The registrar rattled off the list. "...until death do you part?"
"I do not think there are enough things on the list. I should also like for this to include 'on planets and in space, in starships and underwater, when in uniform and without clothes, whether or not there are stars overhead, when at the dinner table with friends, even in hibernation—"
"Hey!" Lorca said sharply. "Just say 'I do!'"
"I do."
The registrar looked on the verge of crying from the stress. "I now pronounce you man and wife, you may kiss the bride," he rattled off, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, both Lorca and Lalana had resumed their previous positions of leaning on his lectern and staring directly at him.
"So, which way to our room?"
The registrar swallowed. "I just need your Federation IDs to register this union to the official interplanetary database."
"Don't have one," said Lalana, which was an easily sellable lie based on the lies told previously.
"I renounced my Federation citizenship when I joined the Lului Consortium of Star Warriors," declared Lorca. Behind him, Sollis squeaked and quickly threw her hand back over her mouth.
"But do not worry, that paper document will be enough to have the marriage recognized by my people," offered Lalana. "We are returning to the Delta Quadrant after this. On my spaceship, which can travel fifty thousand light years in the time it would take you to sing a song. A long song, but a song all the same. I am hopeful that my people will be able to find a way to save my husband's life."
"But traveling in your ship is what made me sick in the first place!" said Lorca with a grin.
"Yes, well, maybe this time it will make you un-sick."
"Maybe!" agreed Lorca wholeheartedly, chuckling. Then he fake-coughed a few times. Because he was dying.
The registrar reluctantly handed them their marriage certificate. "The front desk will be happy to assist you with your rooms and luggage." As they walked away, he called after them in a pitiful voice, "Please enjoy your stay!"
They bid goodnight to Caxus and Sollis at the entrance to the lift. "I can't believe you did that," said Sollis, still shocked. "I can't believe we let you do that. I can't believe we helped you do that!"
Caxus was laughing, taking this better than Sollis. "Congratulations?" he offered.
"That is how you get a hotel room," said Lorca, smug as ever.
"And how you get a marriage which is only legally binding on Risa," added Lalana. "So now I can still marry Einar on Earth."
All the smugness dropped away. Lorca's expression began to resemble the registrar's. Lalana started clicking her tongue, then reached over with a hand and tugged on the leg of his pants. Literally pulling his leg. "Your face! Your face!" she said, and clicked some more. Lorca groaned.
"See? It's not fun when you're on the receiving end!" said Sollis. "That poor man..."
"I'm sure he'll be okay," said Caxus, patting Sollis on the back.
Lorca hated to see Sollis this upset over their little joke. "Sollis, I was never going to get married, so if anything, you've given me a gift I wouldn't have gotten otherwise. A chance to experience this." He threw his hands wide, indicating the hotel and everything in general.
"Yes, and because of you, now I can finally tell Da Hee that I managed to keep Gabriel."
Dim recognition flitted across Lorca's face. "Keep me?"
"Do you not remember? At dinner on the Triton! Da Hee said you were a keeper, and I said I would like to keep you, and now I have!"
Lorca raised his eyebrows, looked at Sollis and Caxus, and said, "I'm not sure, but I think I may have just been played." Lalana clicked her tongue. If it had been a con, it had certainly been a long one.
Lorca and Lalana stepped into the lift. The doors closed. They were alone. After two seconds of silence, Lorca started convulsing with laughter. He laughed so hard, tears came to his eyes. Lalana clicked merrily along as she shifted back to her usual grey-blue.
"For the record," he said as the lift doors opened, "I won."
Lalana stopped clicking. "How do you think that? Victory was clearly mine!"
"I got him to give us the certificate. That got us the room."
"Yes, but all you claimed to be was dying. I claimed to be from the Delta Quadrant! That is a much bigger lie."
"Not in your case it's not." Most people had never seen a lului and wouldn't know if one came from the Delta Quadrant or the unexplored system next door.
"I said my spaceship could travel fifty thousand light years on a song."
"Maybe, but that was after we signed the paper, and I'm the one who said fifty thousand in the first place." Lorca hit the door control.
The suite beyond was incredible. Flowers cascading across the room, windows carved within the curves of natural stone formations, a fountain set into the stone, live plants, curtains stretching floor to ceiling, and a curved bed that could probably fit six people and somehow gave the impression of a giant cocoon. The view outside held the last purple hues of the sunset and looked out onto a hidden lagoon. There was a balcony, a full bar, and cushions for sitting or laying in almost any place or position a newlywed couple might want to try.
"Now this is an effective joke!" he declared.
"A practical joke!" she corrected him, to which he said:
"Practical and effective." They laughed together.
The room was positioned more for sunsets than sunrises, which was perfect for sleeping in, but even so far removed from the rigors and routine of a starship, Lorca still woke early and went for a run. Lalana went with him. It was nice to see the island in the early morning before most of it was awake. It was only when they got back to the room that Lorca realized something was different.
"Hang on. Weren't there flowers here yesterday?" He pointed to a spot on the wall.
"Yes, they were delicious," said Lalana. "I ate them while you were asleep."
Laughing, he scooped her up and swung her onto the bed, flopping down beside her. "God it's good to actually be in the same room with you again. Seems like it's been forever."
She half-climbed onto him, resting her head on his chest. "To me, it feels like yesterday." She vibrated slightly. There was something oddly comforting about it, like a cat's purr. "Do you remember the first time we were on Risa?"
"I don't think I can forget." That had been a spectacularly memorable trip in about twelve different ways, six of them not suited for polite company, two of them probably illegal on most worlds.
Her tail flopped onto his hair and her filaments began twirling through. "When you said what you said, it made me so happy."
He looked down at her, curious. He had said a lot of things. "Remind me, what'd I say?"
"That you understood how I felt, wanting to run to the stars, because you did, too."
Lorca sniffed in amusement. The goodbye, of course. How much easier it would have been if the goodbye had actually been a goodbye and not a preface to things he would rather forget. "Of course. We're the same that way. Who wouldn't want to run out there and see everything there is to see?
She tilted her head against his shirt and said, "Only my entire species."
"Besides them." There was no denying Lalana's people were the worst. The Gorn skeleton was still taking up space in cold storage on Earth because Lorca had yet to find a way to get rid of it that didn't entail bumping up against questions or regulations. "I never asked you. What did you and Umale talk about at... Deepwater Hive?" The name had stuck with him all these years.
"We did not speak about anything because I did not go."
He propped himself up partway. "I thought you got the worms there?"
"Oh dear me," she said, a phrase she had picked up from an elderly human woman during a spaceflight. "You really do not understand the geography of Luluan. Deepwater Hive is... it is as deep as the waters go. On your world, it would be the equivalent of the Mariana Trench. It is very warm there, and it is where all the most important lului live. To keep them safe, you understand. It is our fortress. I wish you could see it. There are things down there that are like nothing on any other worlds. The twists and textures of the corridors, hidden pockets of treasures collected over the millennia. A record of fossils extending back to the earliest days of life on our world. Clusters of polyps in every color you can imagine and some you cannot. Curves worn smooth by years of travel, so when you pass through them, it is like slipping past time. The pressure of the water, though, it would crush your skull. And your skin would burn and boil. And also I think you would get stuck in the passageways that lead to it, as they are very narrow, and then you would be eaten by milulae, assuming of course that you did not drown first..."
It had been an enthralling story of wonders until she started describing all the reasons why he could not go. "Please stop telling me how I'd die. It is entirely unsexy."
She perked up, pushing upward with her arms so it looked like she was doing the lului version of a push-up on top of him. "Then shall we do something else?"
"What did you have in mind?"
"Media Center! Play God Only Knows by the Beach Boys on repeat!"
"No!" he exclaimed in mock horror, because this was her favorite song, and she listened to it almost incessantly.
"Only five loops," she promised.
"I may not always love you," it began.
"Why do you love this song so much?" he sighed. It had always seemed kind of hokey to him, with its blaring horn intro, periodic musical flourishes, and vocal harmonies.
She relaxed against him again. "Because, it says a truth I feel. And it's pretty how the voices come together."
He listened to the lyrics with more of an ear the second playthrough, and the third. There was a definite sense of bittersweetness to it. Between "I may not always love you" and "if you should ever leave me," the only sentiment he could think she was ruminating on was the difference in lifespans, and in that case, what to think of the line "what good would living do me?"
"When you say it's a truth... is this about killing yourself?"
Lalana batted his face with her tail in admonishment. "Why must you make this song about death? Is that what it means to be human, to live such a short life that you think always of dying? To me, the song is saying the opposite. To me, it is about how you gave me the stars, and so long as the stars are there, then you are there, too."
After the fifth play, she stopped it as promised. They lay in silence for a minute. Then she said, "It is not the song that I love. It is you."
The words "I'm sorry, I don't feel the same" drifted through Lorca's head not because they were true, but because that was how he normally responded to romantic confessions. Instead he had the media center play some more music.
Something lingered in his mind. He hadn't given her the stars, not really. But he could fix that.
2254.
It was one of the most stunning things he had ever seen. A little proplyd star, yellow as a citrine, with a beautiful disk the color of spring green grass spread out around it.
"And it doesn't have a name?"
"None in our systems. It is designated IPD36397J-α in our star charts."
"We'll have to fix that," declared Lorca.
It had taken some doing to locate a star that matched his specifications. Weeks of scouring the charts and databases to find a candidate that was both the right color and within a region of space they might reasonably be expected to travel to.
Part of the reason it was so hard was that there was no such thing as a green star. Stars could be blue, yellow, red, or orange. They were never green or purple. The trick was to find one with quantities of sulfur or methane around it, giving rise to the impression it was green. The fact that this was a proplyd star in addition to possessing the correct combination of elements was pure icing on the cake.
"All right, I'm naming it. Horaiz. Like 'horizon,'" Lorca said, keying in the spelling he had chosen. It also corresponded to a human surname, for double indemnity.
"Horaiz," remarked Carver. "I like it."
Lorca smiled, because while it didn't look like much written down, you could hear it when it was spoken, if you knew what to listen for. "Do me a favor, Carver. Send these coordinates over to the Gabriella."
"Aye, sir."