Direct excerpt from the tapas records of Yoshio Kawashita. Translated from the Japanese by Language Program (Trevor)—1360-C Twentieth.
Married. Almost trivial, four hundred and some years old, recording a marriage. Married before, seven times, but to people who didn't exist. I know the institution, but through the distortions imposed by divine spirits.
Married to Anna Sigrid Nestor, strong, loving, fragile. Like jumping off a cliff. Beneath the dome, I was never nervous about being married, any more than an actor on stage. What was I committing myself to? But now I can choose to let my time run short—to die. A marriage can take up a substantial portion of the rest of my life—perhaps all of it. For Anna it was a nervous time, too. Between us we sweated lakes. Slurred our speech. Laughed at our mistakes. Some cried with Anna. Some laughed with me when I delivered my lines in suddenly broken English, as though I'd forgotten
Married in the cargo bay, by an interdenominational minister. License witnessed by the Peloros Testament as legal counsel for the ship, under supervision of three human lawyers; these signed our license. Belong to no country; our legal obligations are minimal. Things are much simpler this way. Any children—natural or, more common, exutero—are automatically entitled to a percentage of our holdings equal to the number of children, divided into half of the estate, subject to legal alterations by our personal Testament programs. Are other ramifications from common law, but have no place here.
After the ceremony and hours of celebration, Anna took me aside and suggested it was time to begin the honeymoon.
And so we did.