"The captain," she said. "We're on the high seas and he's empowered to perform marriages." Vern looked at me and shrugged, meaning, you asked for this one, boy. And I looked at him and shrugged, meaning, it could be worse. And indeed it could. We'd got our ship; we'd got our ship's company--because, naturally, there wasn't any use stealing a big ship for just a couple of us. We'd had to manage to get a sizable colony aboard. That was the whole idea. The world, in fact, was ours. It could have been very much worse indeed, even though Arthur was laughing so hard as he performed the ceremony that he jammed up all his keys. --FREDERIK POHL