Honeymoon in Hell by Fredric Brown

Author:Fredric Brown [Brown, Fredric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-7953-2120-7
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Published: 1978-08-17T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER III

Remotely Married

It turned out to be a busy evening, all right. Carmody didn’t get to bed until nearly morning, his head so swimming with facts and figures that he’d forgotten it was his wedding day. Granham let him sleep until nine, then sent an orderly to wake him and to state that the ceremony had been set for ten o’clock and that he’d better hurry.

Carmody couldn’t remember what “the ceremony” was for a moment, then he shuddered and hurried.

A Justice of the Peace was waiting for him there and technicians were working on a screen and projector. Granham said, “The Russians agreed that the ceremony could be performed at this end, provided we made it a civil ceremony. That’s all right by you, isn’t it?”

“It’s lovely,” Carmody told him. “Let’s get on with it. Or don’t we have to? As far as I’m concerned—”

“You know what the reaction of a lot of people would be when they learn about it, if it wasn’t legal,” Granham said. “So quit crabbing. Stand right there.”

Carmody stood right there. A fuzzy picture on the beam-television screen was becoming clearer. And prettier. President Saunderson had not exaggerated when he’d said that Anna Borisovna was attractive and that she was definitely not an Amazon. She was small, dark, slender and very definitely attractive and not an Amazon.

Carmody felt glad that nobody had corned it up by putting her in a wedding costume. She wore the neat uniform of a technician, and she filled it admirably and curved it at the right places. Her eyes were big and dark and they were serious until she smiled at him. Only then did he realize that the connection was two-way and that she was seeing him.

Granham was standing beside him. He said, “Miss Borisovna, Captain Carmody.”

Carmody said, inanely, “Pleased to meet you,” and then redeemed it with a grin.

“Thank you, Captain.” Her voice was musical and only faintly accented. “It is a pleasure.”

Carmody began to think it would be, if they could just keep from arguing politics.

The Justice of the Peace stepped forward into range of the projector. “Are we ready?” he asked.

“A second,” Carmody said. “It seems to me we’ve skipped a customary preliminary. Miss Borisovna, will you marry me?”

“Yes. And you may call me Anna.”

She even has a sense of humor, Carmody thought, astonished. Some-how, he hadn’t thought it possible for a Commie to have a sense of humor. He’d pictured them as all being dead serious about their ridiculous ideology and about everything else.

He smiled at her and said, “All right, Anna. And you may call me Ray. Are you ready?”

When she nodded, he stepped to one side to allow the Justice of the Peace to share the screen with him. The ceremony was brief and businesslike.

He couldn’t, of course, kiss the bride or even shake hands with her. But just before they shut off the projector, he managed to grin at her and say, “See you in Hell, Anna.”

And he’d begun to feel certain that it wouldn’t be that at all, really.

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