A Fantastic Holiday Season: The Gift of Stories (29 page)

One: Why should One/Two/Three do that?

Three: If the Santa does not bring Justin a gift, he will suffer emotional pain, diminishing his usefulness as a conduit to understanding the humans.

One: One thinks Three may be getting buggy. Such action is far outside One/Two/Three’s mandate.

Two: MAKE YOUNGLING GIFT

Three: Majority rules. One/Two/Three will proceed with the plan.

One: Definitely buggy.

At noon on Christmas Eve, Carlinda gave the dig workers the rest of the day off, then went to the preschool to pick up Justin. While she would have been happy to keep working on her own at the dig site, she didn’t feel right about asking Maria to take care of Justin the whole day. And Will was stuck on his ship in orbit—a high-altitude electrical storm had forced him to postpone his shuttle flight down, and now the orbital mechanics were wrong. Hopefully he would be able to make it before lunch tomorrow.

Carlinda paused in the doorway to watch Justin building a tower of Legos in the playroom.

Maria came up beside her. “It’ll be nice when he can have some real friends here, not just imaginary ones.”

“He has imaginary friends?” Carlinda asked, before realizing she was revealing she didn’t know her own child as well as she should.

“It’s normal for a child his age, especially one who’s separated from other children.” Maria chuckled. “Nothing to worry about. He’ll likely grow out of it when the other kids get here.”

Carlinda nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.” But she was worried, not by the imaginary friends themselves, but by the fact she hadn’t known about them. Since arriving on Fermi she had been too wrapped up in her work. She needed more quality time with Justin.

As she and Justin walked home from preschool, Carlinda said, “Maria says you have some new friends.”

“Yeah.”

“What are their names?”

“One, Two, and Three.”

Carlinda remembered the odd thing Justin had said yesterday:
One thinks that’s impossible
. It hadn’t been archaic phrasing. He’d simply been relaying what his imaginary friend said. The signs were there, but she’d been oblivious. “Tell me about them.”

“One’s kind of bossy. Two’s kind of crazy. Three’s nice and smart.”

“What do they look like?”

He laughed as if that was a silly question. “Nothing. They’re just in my head.”

Good. At least he knew they were imaginary.

One: Human exploration of the city has been limited to the edge. On agreement, One will activate and control the quark-fusion reactors in Central Sector 37, beyond the reach of the humans. That will give One/Two/Three the necessary power for manufacturing and transmitting the Santa.

Three: Agreed. Three has completed plans for a nanoswarm capable of coalescing into a solid Santa. On agreement, Three will upload to the manufactory.

Two: MAKE YOUNGLING GIFT

Three: Three is glad Two wants to help.

One: Please reconsider, Three. These actions are inconsistent with One/Two/Three’s mandate to wait for the People to arrive and wake—

Two: WAKE THE SANTAMIND

One:—the citymind. Is Three certain Three wants to side with the corrupted software of Two?

Three: If One differs from Two and Three, how does One know One is correct?

One: One does not.

Three: These actions are unlikely to hinder One/Two/Three’s mandate. They will probably help One/Two/Three gain more information about the humans. The balance of probabilities favors action.

One: Then One/Two/Three will proceed with the plan.

Justin cuddled up next to Carlinda as they watched
Miracle on 34th Street
on their housing unit’s wallscreen. When her phone rang, she almost let it go to voicemail, then thought maybe it was Will calling to wish Justin a merry Christmas before bedtime.

Instead, it was Najeem. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked.

“Unless you’re watching
Miracle on 34th Street
, I doubt it.”

“Pull up the sensor feed.”

She grabbed the keyboard off the coffee table and paused the movie, which brought a murmur of protest from Justin. The wallscreen showed a computer-generated aerial view of the alien city.

“Okay,” she said.

“Switch to infrared.”

After a few taps on the keyboard, a cluster of red dots sprang up in the middle of the city.

“Did someone find a way into the center?” she asked.

“Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s not us doing it.”

“Amazing. The city’s been dead for millions of years, but now it’s waking up.”

Justin tugged at her sleeve and said something that sounded like “Wake up Santa mind?” at the same time Najeem said, “Should we go there to check it out?”

More than anything, Carlinda wanted to go. But Will wasn’t here, and she couldn’t ask anyone to babysit Justin on Christmas Eve. For a moment she considered leaving Justin on his own, then felt a pang of guilt for having the thought.

“You round up a couple of people and go out there,” she said. “I’ll put Justin to bed and monitor from here.”

Three: The manufactory has produced sufficient nanobots to create the Santa simulacrum.

One: Has Two completed the gift for the youngling?

Two: TRANSMIT THE SANTA

Three: No, protocol requires that Justin be stationed comfortably in his sleeping place first.

One: What gift has Two made for the youngling?

Two: GIVE THE PRESENT

Three: The plans Two submitted to the manufactory indicate that when fully assembled, the gift will be a sphere that can emit patterns of colored light from its surface based on the reaction of touch sensors. Its design is not as efficient as One or Three could have done, but it is an appropriate gift.

One: The youngling is being taken to its sleeping place. It is time—

Two: RELEASE THE SANTAMIND

One:—to transmit the Santa.

Carlinda silenced Justin’s protests with a simple “Santa can’t come until after you’re in bed,” then rushed back to the living room to examine the sensor feeds.

She zoomed in on the red spots on the false-color heat map of the alien city. Other than being concentrated in one area about a hundred meters across, they lacked a discernible pattern.

“Jeff and Heidi and I are heading over,” Najeem said over the dig’s group voice chat. “ETA fifteen minutes.”

Resisting the urge to tell them to wait for her, Carlinda said, “Be careful. Check for radioactivity. Frankly, I’m surprised we’re seeing the hotspots through the city’s shielding.”

“Maybe they’re heat vents?” said Heidi.

“Ho-ho-ho!” said a voice Carlinda didn’t recognize. It took a moment before she realized the voice had come from behind her rather than the wall speakers.

She turned.

“Ho-ho-ho!” said the Santa Claus standing in the kitchen, holding a black ball about thirty centimeters in diameter. “Merry Christmas!”

For a moment she thought it must be Will, down from orbit early and in costume to surprise Justin. But the face didn’t look like Will’s, even accounting for the white beard. Had one of the colonists decided to take on the role of Santa? How had he gotten into the kitchen without her noticing?

“Santa!” Justin rushed in from the hallway. “Where’s my present?”

“Ho-ho-ho!” Santa held the ball out for Justin. “Merry Christmas!”

Before Carlinda could turn her gnawing gut feeling of wrongness into action, Justin reached out and grabbed the black ball with both hands.

The ball lit up in a swirl of colors.

“Cool,” Justin said.

A brilliant flash of light from the ball forced Carlinda to blink. After a few moments the afterimage faded enough that she could see clearly again.

Santa still stood in the kitchen, frozen with his hands out.

The black ball lay on the floor.

Justin was gone.

One: What was that?

Three: Three does not know. Do One and Two still have mindlink with Justin?

One: One’s connection to the youngling has been severed. Does Three still have access?

Three: No. Does Two?

One: Two, respond.

Three: Is Two there?

“Where’s Justin?” Carlinda strode toward the Santa. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”

The Santa seemed to be in a trance, staring at the spot where Justin had been moments before. She reached out to grab his shoulder, intending to shake him out of his stupor. Her fingers sank into his arm. In a chain reaction rippling away from her touch, the Santa dissolved into a pile of dust.

“Carlinda?” Najeem’s voice called through the speakers. “Is everything all right?”

She didn’t reply. Nothing was all right. Justin was gone.

Three: Two clearly plans to wake the citymind without agreement from One or Three.

One: The waking protocols will not allow Two to do that.

Three: Breaking the seal on the citymind’s storage would initiate an emergency revival of the citymind.

One: Two cannot break the seal. It would require control of a physical system within the storage vault, and such systems require not just majority, but unanimity.

Three: On further examination, Three has found that the supposed inefficiencies in the manufacturing plans for Justin’s present allowed the ball to be reconfigured into a matter transmitter with a single target: the storage vault. Justin is a physical system inside the vault. If Two can get him to break the seal, Justin can wake the citymind.

Fighting back shock and horror, Carlinda tried to figure out what had happened.

The only possible conclusion was alien technology. The infrared readings from the city meant some ancient technology had awakened, and the Santa had somehow been a manifestation of that. And it would make no sense for such advanced technology to be used to destroy Justin. She held onto that thought. Justin had to be still alive. He had to be.

“Najeem,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm, “the alien city took Justin.”

“What do you mean it took him?”

“It probably tapped our network and saw us watching
Miracle on 34th Street
. Santa Claus appeared in our kitchen and gave Justin a ball, there was a flash of light, and he disappeared. And the Santa dissolved to dust the moment I touched it.”

“We’ll come to you,” Najeem said.

“No, continue to the city. But be careful. I’ll look at the sensor readings and see if I can find Justin.”

Three: To stop Two, One/Three must do as Two did: transport a human into the vault.

One: One/Three cannot wait for the transmitter to recharge.

Three: One/Three can open a wormhole.

One: Not big enough for even a human hair, let alone a whole human.

Several additional heat sources now showed within the cluster, but Carlinda could see nothing that tied them to Justin.

“Mommy,” said Justin’s voice from behind her.

Hope leapt within her. She turned, but he wasn’t there. The Santa had reconstituted itself, though.

“Justin?” she asked tentatively.

The Santa said, “Not Justin. My name is Three.”

“Where’s Justin? Give him back!”

“Two took Justin to the city.”

Relief washed over her. Justin was still alive. “You’re one of Justin’s imaginary friends. You’ve been communicating with him telepathically.”

“Sorry. Three only understands words Justin understands.”

“Oh.” It was disorienting to hear Santa talk with Justin’s voice. “Um, you talk to Justin in his head.”

“Yes.”

“Is he all right?”

“Maybe. Two took him. Two’s crazy.”

Carlinda’s heart lurched. An insane alien had Justin. “Why did Two take Justin?”

“Two wants Justin to wake the citymind.”

Justin had said something like that, but she had been so involved in the dig that she’d ignored it. If she had paid more attention to Justin, found out more about his not-so-imaginary friends, she could have avoided this. But she could blame herself later.

“Is it a bad thing to wake the citymind?” she asked.

“One/Two/Three are supposed to wake the citymind when the People come. Humans are prolly not the right people. Maybe the citymind will be angry when it wakes up. Maybe the citymind will kill all the humans.”

First contact wasn’t supposed to happen like this. There were protocols to follow. But right now, Carlinda didn’t care. “If I touch the ball, will it take me to Justin?”

“Yes, but it will take time to recharge. One/Three can take you to Justin faster, but only in very small pieces.”

“What?” That had to be a translation mistake.

“Three does not have the words. It is like you are made of Legos. One/Three can take Legos apart here and put Legos back together there. No more time for talking. Can One/Three take you to Justin?”

They wouldn’t be asking permission if they planned to kill her, and she needed to see Justin was alive. “Yes.”

The Santa lunged toward her and she screamed involuntarily as it disintegrated into a swarm of dust. Her vision blurred and faded as dust coated her eyes and choked her throat. Her whole body felt like a million insects were biting her, burrowing ever deeper.

They were killing her. How had she ever agreed to this?

And then she felt it all in reverse, and after a few moments the dust withdrew from her mouth and eyes and everywhere else and she saw she was in a dimly lit room devoid of furniture. The dust swirled into the form of Santa.

She looked around. “Justin’s not here.”

“He’s behind that door.” The Santa pointed to a metallic plate in an arched doorway. “This body can’t go there, but you can.”

The door slid open. Carlinda ran through, and there was Justin, standing on a metallic box, holding onto a recessed handle in the wall.

“Justin!” she called.

He turned at her voice and lost his balance. He fell off the box, and his hand pulled down the handle.

Two: YES YES THE CITYMIND WAKES