"I do it, then," Chang said. "You have colored people at your wedding, right?"

"Well, I think so," Cincinnatus said dryly.

"You have Chinese people, too." Chang nodded and pointed to himself and his wife. Their and Cincinnatus' grandchildren could have gone into either category. Chang went on, "You have white people, too?"

"Yeah, we will," Cincinnatus replied. "Some of the guys from the butcher shop where Calvin works. Little bit of everything."

"Maybe not so bad," Joey Chang said. Considering how hard he and his wife had resisted Grace's marriage to Achilles, that was a lot from him. He insisted they would have liked it just as little had Grace married a white guy. Cincinnatus…almost believed him. Grandchildren had softened the Changs, as grandchildren have a way of doing.

"We should go," Elizabeth said. "Don't want to be late." The church was a block and a half away, so there was very little risk of that. But Elizabeth would flabble. It was a wedding, after all.

"Long as Amanda and Calvin are there-and the minister-don't hardly matter if we show up or not," Cincinnatus said. He made his wife sputter and fume, which was what he'd had in mind. Joey Chang tipped him a wink. Cincinnatus grinned back.

The Changs made much of Seneca Driver as they walked to church. They took old people seriously. "Mighty nice great-grandchillun," Seneca said. "Mighty nice. I don't care none if they's half Chinese, neither. I wouldn't care if they was red, white, an' blue. Mighty nice."

Cincinnatus wished he could move along with his back straight and without a stick in his right hand. His leg still hurt. So did his shoulder. The steel plate in his skull made mine detectors go off-an amused Army engineer had proved that one day.

Beat up or not, though, he was still alive and kicking-as long as he didn't have to kick too hard. With a little luck, he'd see more grandchildren before long. Compared to most of the surviving Negroes in the conquered Confederacy, he had the world by the tail.

Calvin's father and mother were already at the church. They were pleasant people, a few years younger than Cincinnatus. Abraham Washington ran a secondhand-clothes store. It wasn't a fancy way to make a living, but he'd done all right. Calvin had a brother, Luther, a year younger than he was. Luther wore a green-gray uniform and had a PFC's chevron on his sleeve. He looked tough and strong-and proud of himself, too.

"I didn't see any combat, sir," he said to Cincinnatus. "Heard stories about what you truck drivers went through, though. What was it like?"

"Son, you didn't miss a thing," Cincinnatus answered. "That's the honest to God truth. Getting shot at when they miss is bad. If they hit you, it's worse."

"I told him that," Abraham Washington said. "I told him, but he didn't want to listen. He went and volunteered anyway."

"He got the chance to show he was as good as a white man, and he went and took it," Cincinnatus said. "How you gonna blame him for that?"

Luther Washington grinned from ear to ear. "Somebody understands why I did what I did!"

His father only sniffed. By the way Abraham Washington sounded, his people had lived in Des Moines for generations. He was used to being thought as good as a white man-or nearly as good, anyhow. Having grown up in the CSA, Cincinnatus could see why Luther was willing to lay his life on the line to get rid of the nearly. During the Great War, plenty of Negroes joined the Confederate Army to win citizenship for themselves. Plenty more would have this time around, if only Jake Featherston had let them. That urge to prove himself-that feeling you had to keep proving yourself-stayed strong in Negroes on both sides of the old border.

Cincinnatus didn't want to think about Jake Featherston, not at his daughter's wedding. He looked around the church. The Changs had gone over with Achilles and Grace and their grandchildren-who, in Cincinnatus' considered and unbiased (of course!) opinion, were the brightest and most beautiful grandbabies in the whole world.

And there were a few whites, as he'd told Joey Chang there would be. They were doing their best-some doing better than others-to be friendly with the colored people sitting around them. Cincinnatus smiled to himself. The whites were a small minority here. They were getting a tiny taste of what Negroes in the USA went through all the time.

But it was better here than it ever had been down in the Confederacy. Not good, necessarily, but better. Cincinnatus had experience with both places. He knew when he was better off. He'd voted here. His children had graduated from high school. Maybe his grandchildren would go to college. Down in the CSA, back before the Great War, he'd been unusual-and an occasional object of suspicion-because he could read and write.

A burly young man whose shoulders strained the fabric of his tuxedo jacket came up. His name was Amos Something-or-other. He was one of Calvin's friends, and the best man. "Wedding procession's forming up," he said.

"That's us," Elizabeth said. Cincinnatus couldn't very well tell her she was wrong.

Amanda seemed ready to burst with glee. That was how the bride was supposed to act on her wedding day. Calvin didn't look ready to run for his life. For a groom on his wedding day, that would do.

The organist struck up the wedding march. Down the aisle everybody went. A photographer fired off one flashbulb after another. Yellow-purple spots danced in front of Cincinnatus' eyes.

Up at the front of the church, he and the rest of Amanda's supporters went to the right, those of Calvin Washington to the left. The minister did what ministers do. After a while, he got to, "Who giveth this woman?"

"I do," Cincinnatus said proudly.

Amanda and Calvin got to say their "I do"s a couple of minutes later. Amanda's ring had a tiny diamond on it. Tiny or not, it sparkled under the electric lights. It shone no brighter than Amanda's smile, though. The kiss the new husband and wife exchanged was decorous, but not chaste.

Down the street three doors to the reception, Joey Chang's good beer was highly unofficial, but also highly appreciated. The minister drank several glasses and got very lively. Cincinnatus hadn't expected that. Preachers were supposed to be a straitlaced lot, weren't they? But if this one wanted to let his processed hair down, why not?

One of the white men congratulated Cincinnatus. "Your daughter's a pretty girl, and she seems mighty nice," he said.

"Thank you kindly." Cincinnatus was ready to approve of anybody who approved of Amanda.

"This is a good bash, too," the white man said. "People get together and have a good time, they're all pretty much the same, you know?"

He seemed to think he'd come out with something brilliant. "I won't quarrel with you," Cincinnatus said.

"And you've got to tell me who makes your beer," the white man added.

"That fella right over there." Cincinnatus pointed to Joey Chang, who held a glass of his own product. "His daughter's married to my son."

"Well, how about that?" the white man said, which was safe enough under almost any circumstances. "Stir everything around, huh?"

"Why not?" Cincinnatus waited to see if the ofay would go any further.

But he didn't. He just said, "How about that?" again.

Good, Cincinnatus thought. He wanted no trouble, not today. He never wanted trouble, but he'd landed in some. He wouldn't worry about that, either. This was Amanda's day, and it should be a good one. He smiled. He wanted her night to be better yet.