A Cosmic Christmas

by Hank Davis

  Three hundred kilometers north of Dahia, the wilderness was harsh mountainsides, deep-gashed canyons, umber crags, thinly scattered thorn-shrubs and wind-gnarled trees with ragged leaves. Searching for the mineral which cropped here and there out of the sandy ground, Juan soon lost sight of his flitter. He couldn’t get lost from it himself. The aircraft was giving off a radio signal, and the transceiver in his pocket included a directional meter for homing on it. Thus he wandered further than he realized before he had collected a bagful.

  However slowly Ivanhoe rotates, its days must end. Juan grew aware of how low the dim red sun was, how long and heavy the shadows. Chilliness had turned to a cold which bit at his bare face. Evening breezes snickered in the brush. Somewhere an animal howled. When he passed a rivulet, he saw that it had begun to freeze.

  I’m in no trouble, he thought, but I am hungry, and late for supper, and the boss will be annoyed. Even now, it was getting hard for him to see. His vision was meant for bright, yellow-white Sol. He stumbled on rocks. Had his radio compass not been luminous-dialed, he would have needed a flashbeam to read it.

  Nevertheless he was happy. The very weirdness of this environment made it fascinating; and he could hope to go on to many other worlds. Meanwhile, the Christmas celebration would be a circle of warmth and cheer, a memory of home—his parents, his brother and two sisters, Tío Pepe and Tía Carmen, the dear small Mexican town and the laughter as children struck at a piñata—

  “Raielli, Erratan!”

  Halt, Earthling! Juan jarred to a stop.

  He was near the bottom of a ravine, which he was crossing as the most direct way to the flitter. The sun lay hidden behind one wall of it, and dusk filled the heavens. He could just make out boulders and bushes, vague in the gloom.

  Then metal caught what light there was in a faint glimmer. He saw spearheads and a single breastplate. The rest of the warriors had only leather harness. They were blurs around him, save where their huge eyes gleamed like their steel.

  Juan’s heart knocked. These are friends! he told himself. The People of the Black Tents are anxious to deal with us—Then why did they wait here for me? Why have a score of them risen out of hiding to ring me in?

  His mouth felt suddenly parched. He forced it to form words, as well as it could imitate the voice of an Ivanhoan. City and wilderness dwellers spoke essentially the same language. “G-greeting.” He remembered the desert form of salutation. “I am Juan Sancho’s-child, called Hernandez, pledged follower of the merchant Thomas William’s-child, called Overbeck, and am come in peace.”

  “I am Tokonnen Undassa’s-child, chief of the Elassi Clan,” said the lion-being in the cuirass. His tone was a snarl. “We may no longer believe that any Earthling comes in peace.”

  “What?” cried Juan. Horror smote him. “But we do! How—”

  “You camp among the City folk. Now the City demands the right to encroach on our land . . . Hold! I know what you carry.”

  Juan had gripped his blaster. The natives growled. Spears drew back, ready to throw. Tokonnen confronted the boy and continued:

  “I have heard tell about weapons like yours. A fire-beam, fiercer than the sun, springs forth, and rock turns molten where it strikes. Do you think a male of Elassi fears that?” Scornfully: “Draw it if you wish.”

  Juan did, hardly thinking. He let the energy gun dangle downward in his fingers and exclaimed, “I only came to gather a few crystals—”

  “If you slay me,” Tokonnen warned, “that will prove otherwise. And you cannot kill more than two or three of us before the spears of the rest have pierced you. We know how feebly your breed sees in the least of shadows.”

  “But what do you want?”

  “When we saw you descend, afar off, we knew what we wanted—you, to hold among us until your fellows abandon Dahia.”

  Half of Juan realized that being kept hostage was most likely a death sentence for him. He couldn’t eat Ivanhoan food; it was loaded with proteins poisonous to his kind of life. In fact, without a steady supply of antiallergen, he might not keep breathing. How convince a barbarian herder of that?

  The other half pleaded, “You are being wild. What matter if a few City dwellers come out after adir? Or . . . you can tell them ‘no.’ Can’t you? We, we Earthlings—we had nothing to do with the embassy they sent.”

  “We dare not suppose you speak truth, you who have come here for gain,” Tokonnen replied. “What is our freedom to you, if the enemy offers you a fatter bargain? And we remember, yes, across a hundred generations we remember the Empire. So do they in Dahia. They would restore it, cage us within their rule or drive us into the badlands. Their harvesters would be their spies, the first agents of their conquest. This country is ours. It is strong with the bones of our fathers and rich with the flesh of our mothers. It is too holy for an Imperial foot to tread. You would not understand this, merchant.”

  “We mean you well,” Juan stammered. “We’ll give you things—”

  Tokonnen’s mane lifted haughtily against darkling cliff, twilit sky. From his face, unseen in murk, the words rang: “Do you imagine things matter more to us than our liberty or our land?” Softer: “Yield me your weapon and come along. Tomorrow we will bring a message to your chief.”

  The warriors trod closer.

  There went a flash through Juan. He knew what he could do, must do. Raising the blaster, he fired straight upward.

  Cloven air boomed. Ozone stung with a smell of thunderstorms. Blue-white and dazzling, the energy beam lanced toward the earliest stars.

  The Ivanhoans yelled. By the radiance, Juan saw them lurch back, drop their spears, clap hands to eyes. He himself could not easily look at that lightning bolt. They were the brood of a dark world. Such brilliance blinded them.

  Juan gulped a breath and ran.

  Up the slope! Talus rattled underfoot. Across the hills beyond! Screams of wrath pursued him.

  The sun was now altogether down, and night came on apace. It was less black than Earth’s, for the giant stars of the Pleiades cluster bloomed everywhere aloft, and the nebula which enveloped them glowed lacy across heaven. Yet often Juan fell across an unseen obstacle. His pulse roared, his lungs were aflame.

  It seemed forever before he glimpsed his vehicle. Casting a glance behind, he saw what he had feared, the warriors in pursuit. His shot had not permanently damaged their sight. And surely they tracked him with peripheral vision, ready to look entirely away if he tried another flash.

  Longer-legged, born to the planet’s gravity, they overhauled him, meter after frantic meter. To him they were barely visible, bounding blacknesses which often disappeared into the deeper gloom around. He could not have hoped to pick them all off before one of them got to range, flung a spear from cover, and struck him.

  Somehow, through every terror, he marveled at their bravery.

  Run, run.

  He had barely enough of a head start. He reeled into the hull, dogged the door shut, and heard missiles clatter on metal. Then for a while he knew nothing.

  When awareness came back, he spent a minute giving thanks. Afterward he dragged himself to the pilot chair. What a scene! passed across his mind. And, a crazy chuckle: The old definition of adventure. Somebody else having a hard time a long ways off.

  He slumped into the seat. The vitryl port showed him a sky turned wonderful, a land of dim slopes and sharp ridges—He gasped and sat upright. The Ivanhoans were still outside.

  They stood leaning on their useless spears or clinging to the hilts of their useless swords, and waited for whatever he would do. Shakily, he switched on the sound amplifier and bullhorn. His voice boomed over them: “What do you want?”

  Tokonnen’s answer remained prideful. “We wish to know your desire, Earthling. For in you we have met a thing most strange.”

  Bewildered, Juan could merely respond with, “How so?”

  “You rendered us helpless,” Tokonnen said. “Why did you not at once kill us? Instead, you chose to flee. Y
ou must have known we would recover and come after you. Why did you take the unneeded risk?”

  “You were helpless,” Juan blurted. “I couldn’t have . . . hurt you . . . especially at this time of year.”

  Tokonnen showed astonishment. “Time of year? What has that to do with it?”

  “Christmas—” Juan paused. Strength and clarity of mind were returning to him. “You don’t know about that. It’s a season which, well, commemorates one who came to us Earthlings, ages ago, and spoke of peace as well as much else. For us, this is a holy time.” He laid hands on controls. “No matter. I only ask you believe that we don’t mean you any harm. Stand aside. I am about to raise this wagon.”

  “No,” Tokonnen said. “Wait. I ask you, wait.” He was silent for a while, and his warriors with him. “What you have told us—We must hear further. Talk to us, Earthling.”

  Once he had radioed that he was safe, they stopped worrying about Juan at the base. For the next several hours, the men continued their jobs. It was impossible for them to function on a sixty-hour day, and nobody tried. Midnight had not come when they knocked off. Recreation followed. For four of them, this meant preparing their Christmas welcome to the ship.

  As they worked outdoors, more and more Dahians gathered, fascinated, to stand silently around the plaza and watch. Overbeck stepped forth to observe the natives in his turn. Nothing like this had ever happened before.

  A tree had been erected on the flagstones. Its sparse branches and stiff foliage did not suggest an evergreen; but no matter, it glittered with homemade ornaments and lights improvised from electronic parts. Before it stood a manger scene that Juan had constructed. A risen moon, the mighty Pleiades, and the luminous nebular veil cast frost-cold brilliance. The beings who encompassed the square, beneath lean houses and fortress towers, formed a shadow-mass wherein eyes glimmered.

  Feinberg and Gupta decorated. Noguchi and Sarychev, who had the best voices, rehearsed. Breath from their song puffed white.

  “O little town of Bethlehem,

  How still we see thee lie—”

  A muted “A-a-ahhh!” rose from the Dahians, and Juan landed his flitter.

  He bounded forth. Behind him came a native in a steel breastplate. Overbeck had awaited this since the boy’s last call. He gestured to Raffak, speaker of the Elders. Together, human and Ivanhoan advanced to greet human and Ivanhoan.

  Tokonnen said, “It may be we misjudged your intent, City folk. The Earthling tells me we did.”

  “And his lord tells me we of Dahia pushed forward too strongly,” Raffak answered. “That may likewise be.”

  Tokonnen touched sword-hilt and warned, “We shall yield nothing which is sacred to us.”

  “Nor we,” said Raffak. “But surely our two people can reach an agreement. The Earthlings can help us make terms.”

  “They should have special wisdom, now in the season of their Prince of Peace.”

  “Aye. My fellows and I have begun some hard thinking about that.”

  “How do you know of it?”

  “We were curious as to why the Earthlings were making beauty, here where we can see it away from the dreadful heat,” Raffak said. “We asked. In the course of this, they told us somewhat of happenings in the desert, which the far-speaker had informed them of.”

  “It is indeed something to think about,” Tokonnen nodded. “They, who believe in peace, are more powerful than us.”

  “And it was war which destroyed the Empire. But come,” Raffak invited. “Tonight be my guest. Tomorrow we will talk.”

  They departed. Meanwhile the men clustered around Juan. Overbeck shook his hand again and again. “You’re a genius,” he said. “I ought to take lessons from you.”

  “No, please, sir,” his apprentice protested. “The thing simply happened.”

  “It wouldn’t have, if I’d been the one who got caught.”

  Sarychev was puzzled. “I don’t quite see what did go on,” he confessed. “It was good of Juan to run away from those nomads, instead of cutting them down when he had the chance. However, that by itself can’t have turned them meek and mild.”

  “Oh, no.” Overbeck chuckled. His cigar end waxed and waned like a variable star. “They’re as ornery as ever—same as humans.” Soberly: “The difference is, they’ve become willing to listen to us. They can take our ideas seriously, and believe we’ll be honest brokers, who can mediate their quarrels.”

  “Why could they not before?”

  “My fault, I’m afraid. I wasn’t allowing for a certain part of Ivanhoan nature. I should have seen. After all, it’s part of human nature too.”

  “What is?” Gupta asked.

  “The need for—” Overbeck broke off. “You tell him, Juan. You were the one who did see the truth.”

  The boy drew breath. “Not at first,” he said. “I only found I could not bring myself to kill. Is Christmas not when we should be quickest to forgive our enemies? I told them so. Then . . . when suddenly their whole attitude changed . . . I guessed what the reason must be.” He searched for words. “They knew—both Dahians and nomads knew—we are strong; we have powers they can’t hope to match. That doesn’t frighten them. They have to be fearless, to survive in as bleak a country as this.

  “Also, they have to be dedicated. To keep going through endless hardship, they must believe in something greater than themselves, like the Imperial dream of Dahia or the freedom of the desert. They’re ready to die for those ideals.

  “We came, we Earthlings. We offered them a fair, profitable bargain. But nothing else. We seemed to have no other motive than material gain. They could not understand this. It made us too peculiar. They could never really trust us.

  “Now that they know we have our own sacrednesses, well, they see we are not so different from them, and they’ll heed our advice.”

  Juan uttered an unsteady laugh. “What a long lecture, no?” he ended. “I’m very tired and hungry. Please, may I go get something to eat and afterward to bed?”

  As he crossed the square, the carol followed him:

  “—The hopes and fears of all the years

  Are met in thee tonight.”

  * * *

  INTRODUCTION

  DUMB FEAST

  Many speak of Christmas time as magic, but one genuinely magical spell, at a dumb feast, can summon the spirits of the dear departed. However, before practicing the summoning magic, this grieving widower should have first considered just how dear he might be to the departed. And while Ebenezer Scrooge was visited by ghosts who employed the carrot, there’s no rule saying that a stick can’t be used.

  Mercedes Lackey is the New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of the Bardic Voices series and the SERRAted Edge series (both published by Baen), the Heralds of Valdemar series (published by DAW), and many more. She was one of the first writers to have an online newsgroup devoted to her writing. Among her popular Baen titles are The Fire Rose, The Lark and the Wren, and the Heirs of Alexandria series: The Shadow of the Lion, This Rough Magic and Much Fall of Blood (with collaborators Eric Flint and Dave Freer). She lives in Oklahoma.

  * * *

  DUMB FEAST

  By Mercedes Lackey

  Aaron Brubaker considered himself a rational man, a logical man, a modern man of the enlightened nineteenth century. He was a prosperous lawyer in the City, he had a new house in the suburbs, and he cultivated other men like himself, including a few friends in Parliament. He believed in the modern; he had gas laid on in his house, had indoor bathrooms with the best flushing toilets (not that a polite man would discuss such things in polite company), and had a library filled with the writings of the best minds of his time. Superstition and old wives’ tales had no place in his cosmos. So what he was about to do was all the more extraordinary.

  If his friends could see him, he would have died of shame. And yet—and yet he would have gone right on with his plans.

  Nevertheless, he had made certain that there was no chance he mig
ht be seen; the servants had been dismissed after dinner, and would not return until tomorrow after church services. They were grateful for the half-day off, to spend Christmas Eve and morning with their own families, and as a consequence had not questioned their employer’s generosity. Aaron’s daughter, Rebecca, was at a properly chaperoned party for young people which would end in midnight services at the Presbyterian Church, and she would not return home until well after one in the morning. And by then, Aaron’s work would be done, whether it bore fruit, or not.

  The oak-paneled dining room with its ornately carved table and chairs was strangely silent, without the sounds of servants or conversation. And he had not lit the gaslights of which he was so proud; there must only be two candles tonight to light the proceedings, one for him, one for Elizabeth. Carefully, he laid out the plates, the silver; arranged Elizabeth’s favorite winter flowers in the centerpiece. One setting for himself, one for his wife. His dear, and very dead, wife.

  His marriage had not precisely been an arranged affair, but it had been made in accordance with Aaron’s nature. He had met Elizabeth in church; had approved of what he saw. He had courted her, in proper fashion; gained consent of her parents, and married her. He had seen to it that she made the proper friends for his position; had joined the appropriate societies, supported the correct charities. She had cared for his home, entertained his friends in the expected manner, and produced his child. In that, she had been something of a disappointment, since it should have been “children,” including at least one son. There was only Rebecca, a daughter rather than a son, but he had forgiven her for her inability to do better. Romance did not precisely enter into the equation. He had ðexpected to feel a certain amount of modest grief when Elizabeth died—