Christmas on Ganymede and Other Stories Read online

  Martin H. Greenberg (ed) – Christmas on Ganymede

  Sample the Season’s Best and Brightest

  The native population of a Jovian moon threatens to revolt unless Santa Claus comes to town...

  In a world of consumerism gone mad, the true spirit of Christmas makes an astonishing reappearance...

  The toys of a previous year must engage in a brutal and terrifying struggle for survival...

  A bizarre alien creature gives the most precious Christmas gift of all—a life...

  Christmas on Ganymede

  AND OTHER STORIES

  Edited by

  MARTIN H. GREENBERG

  AVON BOOKS NEW YORK

  Additional copyright notices appear on the Acknowledgments pages, which serve as an extension of this Copyright page.

  CHRISTMAS ON GANYMEDE AND OTHER STORIES is an original publication of Avon Books. This collection has never before appeared in book form.

  AVON BOOKS A division of The Hearst Corporation 105 Madison Avenue New York, New York 10016

  Copyright © 1990 by Martin Harry Greenberg Cover art by James Warhola Published by arrangement with the editor Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 90-93183 ISBN: 0-380-76203-X

  All rights reserved, which includes the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever except as provided by the U. S. Copyright Law. For information address Avon Books.

  First Avon Books Printing: December 1990

  AVON TRADEMARK REG. U. S. PAT. OFF. AND IN OTHER COUNTRIES, MARCA REGISTRADA, HECHO EN U. S. A.

  Printed in the U. S. A.

  RA 10 987654321

  an ebookman scan

  Acknowledgments

  "To Hell With the Stars” by Jack McDevitt. Copyright ©

  1987 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “A Midwinter’s Tale" by Michael Swanwick. Copyright ©

  1988 by Michael Swanwick. Reprinted by permission of the author and author’s agent, Virginia Kidd.

  “Christmas on Ganymede” by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1941 by Better Publications, Inc.; renewed © 1968 by Isaac Asimov. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Falcon and the Falconeer” by Barry N. Malzberg. Copyright © 1969 by Mercury Press, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Christmas Roses” by John Christopher. Copyright © 1943 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc.; renewed © 1970 by John Christopher. Reprinted by permission of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

  “Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus” by Frederik Pohl. Copyright © 1956 by Ballantine Books, Inc.; renewed © 1984 by Frederik Pohl. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The War Beneath the Tree” by Gene Wolfe. Copyright © 1979 by Gene Wolfe. Reprinted by permission of the author and the author’s agent, Virginia Kidd.

  “The Santa Claus Planet” by Frank M. Robinson. Copyright © 1951 by Everett F. Bleiler and T. E. Dikty; renewed © 1979 by Frank M. Robinson. Reprinted by permission of Curtis Brown, Ltd.

  “The Pony” by Connie Willis. Copyright © 1985 by Mile High Comics. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “O Little Town of Bethlehem II” by Robert F. Young. Copyright © 1985 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the agents for the author’s Estate, the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

  “The Christmas Present” by Gordon R. Dickson. Copyright © 1957 by Fantasy House, Inc.; renewed © 1985 by Gordon R. Dickson. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “The Season of Forgiveness” by Poul Anderson. Copyright © 1973 by Poul Anderson. Reprinted by permission of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency, Inc., 845 Third Avenue, New York, New York 10022.

  “Christmas Without Rodney” by Isaac Asimov. Copyright © 1988 by Davis Publications, Inc. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  “Christmas Treason” by James White. Copyright © 1961 by Mercury Press, Inc.; renewed © 1989 by James White. Reprinted by permission of the author.

  Contents

  Martin H. Greenberg (ed) – Christmas on Ganymede

  Christmas on Ganymede

  Acknowledgments

  Contents

  To Hell with the Stars - Jack McDevitt

  A Midwinter's Tale - Michael Swanwick

  Christmas on Ganymede - Isaac Asimov

  The Falcon and the Falconeer - Barry N. Malzberg

  Christmas Roses - John Christopher

  Happy Birthday, Dear Jesus - Frederik Pohl

  The War Beneath the Tree - Gene Wolfe

  The Santa Claus Planet - Frank M. Robinson

  The Pony - Connie Willis

  O Little Town of Bethlehem II – Robert F. Young

  The Christmas Present - Gordon R. Dickson

  The Season of Forgiveness – Poul Anderson

  Christmas without Rodney - Isaac Asimov

  Christmas Treason – James White

  End of Christmas on Ganymede

  To Hell with the Stars - Jack McDevitt

  Christmas night.

  Will Cutler couldn’t get the sentient ocean out of his mind. Or the creature who wanted only to serve man. Or the curious chess game in the portrait that hung in a deserted city on a world halfway across the galaxy. He drew up his knees, propped the book against them, and let his head sink back into the pillows. The sky was dark through the plexidome. It had been snowing most of the evening, but the clouds were beginning to scatter. Orion’s belt had appeared, and the lovely double star of Earth and Moon floated among the luminous branches of Granpop’s elms. Soft laughter and conversation drifted up the stairs.

  The sounds of the party seemed for away, and the Space Beagle rode a column of flame down into a silent desert. The glow from the reading lamp was bright on the inside of his eyelids. He broke the beam with his hand, and it dimmed and went out.

  The book lay open at his fingertips.

  It was hard to believe they were a thousand years old, these stories that were so full of energy and so unlike anything he’d come across before: tales of dark, alien places and gleaming temples under other stars and expeditions to black holes. They don’t write like that anymore. Never had, during his lifetime. He’d read some other books from the classical Western period, some Dickens, some Updike, people like that. But these: what was there in the last thousand years to compare with this guy Bradbury?

  The night air felt good. It smelled of pine needles 'and scorched wood and bayberry. And maybe of dinosaurs and rocket fuel.

  His father might have been standing at the door for several minutes. “Goodnight, Champ,” he whispered, lingering.

  “I’m awake, Dad.”

  He approached the bed. “Lights out already?” he asked. “It’s still early.” His weight pressed down the mattress.

  Will was slow to answer. “I know.”

  His father adjusted the sheet, pulling it up over the boy’s shoulders. “It’s supposed to get cold tonight,” he said. “Heavy snow by morning.” He picked up the book and, without looking at it, placed it atop the night table.

  “Dad.” The word stopped the subtle shift of weight that would precede the gentle pressure of his father’s hand against his shoulder, the final act before withdrawal. “Why didn’t we ever go to the stars?”

  He was older than most of the other kids’ dads.

  There had been a time when Will was ashamed of that. He couldn’t play ball and he was a lousy hiker. The only time he’d tried to walk out over the Rise, they’d had to get help to bring him home. But he laughed a lot, and he always listened. Will was reaching an
age at which he understood how much that counted for. “It costs a lot of money, Will. It’s just more than we can manage. You’ll be going to Earth in two years to finish school.”

  The boy stiffened. “Dad, I mean the stars. Alpha Centauri, Vega, the Phoenix Nebula—”

  “The Phoenix Nebula? I don’t think I know that one.”

  “It’s in a story by a man named Clarke. A Jesuit goes there and discovers something terrible—”

  The father listened while Will outlined the tale in a few brief sentences. “I don’t think,” he said, “your mother would approve of your reading such things.” “She gave me the book,” he said, smiling softly. “This one?” It was bound in cassilate, a leather substitute, and its title appeared in silver script: Great Tales of the Space Age. He picked it up and looked at it with amusement. The names of the editors appeared on the spine: Asimov and Greenberg. “I don’t think we realized, uh, that it was like that. Your mother noticed that it was one of the things they found in the time vault on the Moon a couple of years ago. She thought it would be educational.”

  “You’d enjoy it, Dad.”

  His father nodded and glanced at the volume. “What’s the Space Age?”

  “It’s the name that people of the classical period used to refer to their own time. It has to do with the early exploration of the solar system, and the first manned flights. And, I think, the idea that we were going to the stars.”

  A set of lights moved slowly through the sky. “Oh,” his father said. “Well, people have had a lot of strange ideas. History is full of dead gods and formulas to make gold and notions that the world was about to end.” He picked up the book, adjusted the lamp, and opened to the contents page. His gray eyes ran down the listings, and a faint smile played about his lips. “The truth of it, Will, is that the stars are a pleasant dream, but no one’s ever going out to them.”

  “Why not?” Will was puzzled at the sound of irritation in his own voice. He was happy to see that his father appeared not to have noticed.

  “They’re too far. They’re just too far.” He looked up through the plexidome at the splinters of light. “These people, Greenberg and Asimov: they lived, what, a thousand years ago?”

  “Twentieth, twenty-first century. Somewhere in there.”

  “You know that new ship they’re using in the outer System? The Explorer?”

  “Fusion engines,” said the boy.

  “Yes. Do you know what its-top recorded speed is?”

  “About a hundred fifty thousand miles an hour.”

  “Much faster than anything this Greenberg ever saw. Anyhow, if they’d launched an Explorer to Alpha Centaury at the time these stories were written, at that speed, do you know how much of the distance they would have covered by now?”

  Will had no idea. He would have thought they’d have arrived long ago, but he could see that wasn’t going to be the answer. His father produced a mini-comp, pushed a few buttons, and smiled. “About five percent. The Explorer would need another eighteen-thousand years to get there.”

  “Long ride,” said Will grudgingly.

  “You’d want to take a good book.”

  The boy was silent.

  “It’s not as if we haven’t tried, Will. There’s an artificial world, half-built, out beyond Mars someplace. They were going to send out a complete colony, people, farm animals, lakes, forest, everything.” “What happened?”

  “It’s too far. Hell, Will, life is good here. People are happy. There’s plenty of real estate in the solar system if folks want to move. In the end, there weren’t enough volunteers for the world-ship. I mean, what’s the point? The people who go would be depriving their kids of any kind of normal life. How would you feel about living inside a tube for a lifetime? No beaches. Not real ones anyhow. No sunlight. No new places to explore. And for what? The payoff is so far down the road that, in reality, there is no payoff.”

  “In the stories,” Will said, “the ships are very fast.”

  “I’m sure. But even if you traveled on a light beam, the stars are very far apart. And a ship can’t achieve an appreciable fraction of that kind of velocity because it isn’t traveling through a vacuum. At, say, a tenth of the speed of light, even a few atoms straying in front of it would blow the damned thing apart.” Outside, the Christmas lights were blue on the snow.

  “They’d have been disappointed,” the boy said, “at how things came out.”

  “Who would have?”

  “Benford. Robinson. Sheffield.”

  The father looked again at the table of contents. “Oh,” he said. He riffled idly through the pages.

  “Maybe not. It’s hard to tell, of course, with people you don’t know. But we’ve eliminated war, population problems, ecological crises, boundary disputes, racial strife. Everybody eats pretty well now, and for the only time in its history, the human race stands united. I suspect if someone had been able to corner, say—,” he paused and flipped some pages, “—Jack Vance, and ask him whether he would have settled for this kind of world, he’d have been delighted. Any sensible man would. He’d have said to hell with the stars!”

  “No!” The boy’s eyes blazed. “He wouldn't have been satisfied. None of them would.”

  “Well, I don’t suppose it matters. Physical law is what it is, and it doesn’t much matter whether we approve or not. Will, if these ideas hadn’t become dated, and absurd, this kind of book wouldn’t have disappeared. I mean, we wouldn’t even know about Great Tales of the Space Age if someone hadn’t dropped a copy of the thing into the time capsule. That should tell you something.” He got up.

  “Gotta go, kid. Can’t ignore the guests.”

  A Midwinter's Tale - Michael Swanwick

  Maybe I shouldn’t tell you about that childhood Christmas Eve in the Stone House, so long ago. My memory is no longer reliable, not since I contracted the brain fever. Soon I’ll be strong enough to be reposted off planet, to some obscure star light years beyond that plangent moon rising over your father’s barn, but how much has been burned from my mind! Perhaps none of this actually happened.

  Sit on my lap and I’ll tell you all. Well then, my knee. No woman was ever ruined by a knee. You laugh, but it’s true. Would that it were so easy!

  The hell of war as it’s now practiced is that its purpose is not so much to gain territory as to deplete the enemy, and thus it’s always better to maim than to kill. A corpse can be bagged, burned, and forgotten, but the wounded need special care. Regrowth tanks, false skin, medical personnel, a long convalescent stay on your parents’ farm. That’s why they will vary their weapons, hit you with obsolete stone axes or toxins or radiation, to force your Command to stock the proper prophylaxes, specialized medicines, obscure skills. Mustard gas is excellent for that purpose, and so was the brain fever.

  All those months I lay in the hospital, awash in pain, sometimes hallucinating. Dreaming of ice. When I awoke, weak and not really believing I was alive, parts of my life were gone, randomly burned from my memory. I recall standing at the very top of the iron bridge over the Izveltaya, laughing and throwing my books one by one into the river, while my best friend Fennwolf tried to coax me down. “I’ll join the militia! I’ll be a soldier!” I shouted hysterically. And so I did. I remember that clearly but just what led up to that preposterous instant is utterly beyond me. Nor can I remember the name of my second-eldest sister, though her face is as plain to me as yours is now. There are odd holes in my memory.

  That Christmas Eve is an island of stability in my seachanging memories, as solid in my mind as the Stone House itself, that neolithic cavern in which we led such basic lives that I was never quite sure in which era of history we dwelt. Sometimes the men came in from the hunt, a larl or two pacing ahead content and sleepy-eyed, to lean bloody spears against the walls, and it might be that we lived on Old Earth itself then. Other times, as when they brought in projectors to fill the common room with colored lights, scintillae nesting in the branches of the season’s tree,
and cool, harmless flames dancing atop the presents, we seemed to belong to a much later age, in some mythologized province of the future.

  The house was abustle, the five families all together for this one time of the year, and outlying kin and even a few strangers staying over, so that we had to put bedding in places normally kept closed during the winter, moving furniture into attic lumberrooms, and even at that there were cots and thick bolsters set up in the blind ends of hallways. The women scurried through the passages, scattering uncles here and there, now settling one in an armchair and plumping him up like a cushion, now draping one over a table, cocking up a mustachio for effect. A pleasant time.

  Coming back from a visit to the kitchens, where a huge woman I did not know, with flour powdering her big-freckled arms up to the elbows, had shooed me away, I surprised Suki and Georg kissing in the nook behind the great hearth. They had their arms about each other and I stood watching them. Suki was smiling, cheeks red and round. She brushed her hair back with one hand so Georg could nuzzle her ear, turning slightly as she did so, and saw me. She gasped and they broke apart, flushed and startled.

  Suki gave me a cookie, dark with molasses and a single stingy, crystalized raisin on top, while Georg sulked. Then she pushed me away, and I heard her laugh as she took Georg’s hand to lead him away to some darker forest recess of the house.

  Father came in, boots all muddy, to sling a brace of game birds down on the hunt cabinet. He set his unstrung bow and quiver of arrows on their pegs, then hooked an elbow atop the cabinet to accept admiration and a hot drink from mother. The larl padded by, quiet and heavy and content. I followed it around a corner, ancient ambitions of riding the beast rising up within. I could see myself, triumphant before my cousins, high atop the black carnivore. “Flip!” my father called sternly. “Leave Samson alone! He is a bold and noble creature, and I will not have you pestering him.”