A Cosmic Christmas Read online

  “Yes.”

  “My land,” and Mr. Absalom waved a thick arm to show, “terraces back off thataway, and his land terraces off the other direction. We helped each other do the terracing. We were friends.”

  “The path shows you were friends,” said the carpenter. “The ditch shows you aren’t friends any more.”

  “You just bet your neck we ain’t friends any more,” said Mr. Absalom, and his beard crawled on his jaw as he set his mouth.

  “What’s wrong with Troy Holcomb?” asked the carpenter.

  “Oh, nothing. Nothing that a silver bullet might not fix.” Mr. Absalom pointed downhill. “Look at the field below the road.”

  The carpenter looked. “Seems like a good piece of land. Ought to be a crop growing there.”

  Now Mr. Absalom’s teeth twinkled through his beard, like stars through storm clouds. “A court of law gave me that field. Troy Holcomb and I both laid claim to it, but the court said I was in the right. The corn I planted was blighted to death.”

  “Been quite a much of blight this season,” said the carpenter.

  “Yes, down valley, but not up here.” Mr. Absalom glittered his eyes toward the house across the ditch. “A curse was put on my field. And who’d have reason to put a curse on, from some hateful old witch-book or other, but Troy Holcomb? I told him to his face. He denied the truth of that.”

  “Of course he’d deny it,” said the carpenter.

  “Shoo, John, is Mr. Troy Holcomb a witch-man? I never heard that.”

  “I’m just telling what Mr. Absalom said. Well.”

  “If he was a foot higher, I’d have hit him on top of his head,” grumbled Mr. Absalom. “We haven’t spoken since. And you know what he’s done?”

  “He dug this ditch.” The carpenter looked into the running water. “To show he doesn’t want the path to join your place to his any more.”

  “You hit it right,” snorted Mr. Absalom, like a mean horse. “Did he reckon I’d go there to beg his pardon or something? Do I look like that kind of a puppy-man?”

  “Are you glad not to be friends with him?” the carpenter inquired his own question, looking at the squared-log house.

  “Ain’t studying about that,” said Mr. Absalom. “I’m studying to match this dig-ditch job he did against me. Look yonder at that lumber.”

  The carpenter looked at a stack of posts, a pile of boards.

  “He cut me off with a ditch. If you want work, build me a fence along this side of his ditch, from the road down there up to where my back-yard line runs.” Mr. Absalom pointed up slope. “How long will that take you?”

  The carpenter set down his tool chest and figured in his head. Then: “I could do you something to pleasure you by supper time.”

  “Quick as that?” Mr. Absalom looked at him sharp, for he’d reckoned the fence job might take two-three days. “You got it thought out to be a little old small piece of work, huh?”

  “Nothing too big or too small for me to try,” said the carpenter again. “You can say whether it suits you.”

  “Do what I want, and I’ll pay you worth your while,” Mr. Absalom granted him. “I’m heading up to my far corn patch. Before sundown I’ll come look.” He started away. “But it’s got to suit me.”

  “It will,” the carpenter made promise, and opened his chest.

  Like any lone working man, he started out to whistle.

  His whistling carried all the way to Mr. Absalom’s house. And inside, on the front room couch, lay Little Anse.

  You all know how Little Anse couldn’t hardly stand on his poor swunk up legs, even with crutches. It was pitiful to see him scuff a crutch out, then the other, then lean on them and swing his little feet between. He’d scuff and swing again, inching along. But Little Anse didn’t pity himself. He was cheerful-minded, laughing at what trifles he could find. Mr. Absalom had had him to one doctor after another, and none could bid him hope. Said Little Anse was crippled for life.

  When Little Anse heard the whistling, he upped his ears to hear more. He worked his legs off the couch, and sat up and hoisted himself on his crutches. He clutched and scuffed to the door, and out in the yard, and along the path, following that tune.

  It took him a time to get to where the carpenter was working. But when he got there he smiled, and the carpenter smiled back.

  “Can I watch?” Little Anse asked.

  “You’re welcome to watch. I’m doing something here to help your daddy.”

  “How tall are you?” Little Anse inquired him next.

  “Just exactly six feet,” the carpenter replied.

  “Now wait, John, that’s just foolish for the lack of sense. Ain’t no mortal man on this earth exactly six feet tall.”

  “I’m saying what the stranger said.”

  “But the only one who was exactly six feet—”

  “Hold your tater while I tell about it.”

  “I relish that song you were whistling, Mr. Carpenter,” said Little Anse. “I know the words, some of them.” And he sang a verse of it:

  I was a powerful sinner,

  I sinned both night and day,

  Until I heard the preacher,

  And he taught me how to pray:

  Little Anse went on with part of the chorus:

  Go tell it on the mountain,

  Tell it on the hills and everywhere—

  “Can I help you?”

  “You could hand me my tools.”

  “I’ll be proud to.”

  By then they felt as good friends as if they’d been knowing each other long years. Little Anse sat by the tool chest and searched out the tools as the carpenter wanted them. There was a tale to go with each one.

  Like this: “Let me have the saw.”

  As he used it, the carpenter would explain how, before ary man knew a saw’s use there was a saw-shape in the shark’s mouth down in the ocean sea, with teeth lined up like a saw’s teeth; which may help show why some folks claim animals were wise before folks were.

  “Now give me the hammer, Little Anse.”

  While he pounded, the carpenter told of a nation of folks in Europe, that used to believe in somebody named Thor, who could throw his hammer across mountains and knock out thunder and lightning.

  And he talked about what folks believe about wood. How some of them knock on wood, to keep off bad luck. How the ancient folks, lifetimes back, thought spirits lived in trees, good spirits in one tree and bad spirits in another. And a staff of white thorn is supposed to scare out evil.

  “Are those things true, Mr. Carpenter?”

  “Well, folks took them for truth once. There must be some truth in every belief, to get it started.”

  “An outlander stopped here once, with a prayer book. He read to me from it, about how Satan overcame because of the wood. What did he mean, Mr. Carpenter?”

  “He must have meant the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden,” said the carpenter. “You know how Adam and Eve ate of the tree when Satan tempted them?”

  “Reckon I do,” Little Anse replied him, for, with not much else to do, he’d read the Book a many times.

  “There’s more to that outlander’s prayer,” the carpenter added on. “If Satan overcame by the wood, he can also be overcome by the wood.”

  “That must mean another kind of tree, Mr. Carpenter.”

  “Yes, of course. Another kind.”

  Little Anse was as happy as a dog at a fish fry. It was like school, only in school you get wishing the bell would ring and turn you loose. Little Anse didn’t want to be anywhere but just there, handing the tools and hearing the talk.

  “How come you know so much?” he asked the carpenter.

  “I travel lots in my work, Little Anse. That’s a nice thing about it.”

  Little Anse looked over to Mr. Troy Holcomb’s. “You know,” he said, “I don’t agree in my mind that Mr. Troy’s a witch.” He looked again. “If he had power, he’d have long ago cured my legs. He’s a nice old man, for all
he and my daddy fussed between themselves.”

  “You ever tell your daddy that?”

  “He won’t listen. You near-about through?”

  “All through, Little Anse.”

  It was getting on for supper time. The carpenter packed up his tools and started with Little Anse toward the house. Moving slow, the way you do with a cripple along, they hadn’t gone more than a few yards when they met Mr. Absalom.

  “Finished up, are you?” asked Mr. Absalom, and looked. “Well, bless us and keep us all,” he yelled.

  “Don’t you call that a good bridge, daddy?” Little Anse asked.

  For the carpenter had driven some posts straight up in the ditch, and spiked on others like cross timbers. On those he’d laid a bridge floor from side to side. It wasn’t fancy, but it looked solid to last till the Day of Judgment, mending the cutoff of the path.

  “I told you I wanted—” Mr. Absalom began to say.

  He stopped. For Mr. Troy Holcomb came across the bridge.

  Mr. Troy’s a low-built little man, with a white hangdown moustache and a face as brown as old harness leather. He came over and stopped and put out his skinny hand, and it shook like in a wind.

  “Absalom,” he said, choking in his throat, “you don’t know how I been wanting this chance to ask your humble pardon.”

  Then Mr. Absalom all of a sudden reached and took that skinny hand in his big one.

  “You made me so savage mad, saying I was a witch-man,” Mr. Troy said. “If you’d let me talk, I’d have told you the blight was in my downhill corn, too. It only just spared the uphill patches. You can come and look—”

  “Troy, I don’t need to look,” Mr. Absalom made out to reply him. “Your word’s as good to me as the yellow gold. I never rightly thought you did any witch-stuff, not even when I said it to you.”

  “I’m so dog-sorry I dug this ditch,” Mr. Troy went on. “I hated it, right when I had the spade in my hand. Ain’t my nature to be spiteful, Absalom.”

  “No, Troy, ain’t no drop of spite blood in you.”

  “But you built this bridge, Absalom, to show you never favored my cutting you off from me—”

  Mr. Troy stopped talking, and wiped his brown face with the hand Mr. Absalom didn’t have hold of.

  “Troy,” said Mr. Absalom, “I’m just as glad as you are about all this. But don’t credit me with that bridge-idea. This carpenter here, he thought it up.”

  “And now I’ll be going,” spoke up the carpenter in his gentle way.

  They both looked on him. He’d hoisted his tool chest up on his shoulder again, and he smiled at them, and down at Little Anse. He put his hand on Little Anse’s head, just half a second long.

  “Fling away those crutches,” he said. “You don’t need them now.”

  All at once, Little Anse flung the crutches away, left and right. He stood up straight and strong. Fast as any boy ever ran on this earth, he ran to his daddy.

  The carpenter was gone. The place he’d been at was empty.

  But, looking where he’d been, they weren’t frightened, the way they’d be at a haunt or devil-thing. Because they all of a sudden all three knew Who the carpenter was and how He’s always with us, the way He promised in the far-back times; and how He’ll do ary sort of job, if it can bring peace on earth and good will to men, among nations or just among neighbors.

  It was Little Anse who remembered the whole chorus of the song—

  “Shoo, John, I know that song! We sung it last night at church for Christmas Eve!”

  “I know it too, John!”

  “Me! Me too!”

  “All right then, why don’t you children join in and help me sing it?”

  Go tell it on the mountain,

  Tell it on the hills and everywhere,

  Go tell it on the mountain

  That Jesus Christ was born!

  * * *

  INTRODUCTION

  ANGEL IN FLIGHT

  There’re no decorated trees, mistletoe, or eggnog in this story set in a grim future, but there is something of the real meaning of Christmas, though it may be somewhat disguised, like the protagonists. And there definitely is gift-giving, though not the sort that comes in seasonal wrapping paper.

  Sarah A. Hoyt won the Prometheus Award for her novel Darkship Thieves, published by Baen, and has authored Darkship Renegades and A Few Good Men, two more novels set in the same universe, as is “Angel in Flight.” Fans of the series will recognize Jarl Ingemar and might gain some insight into his character. She has written short stories and novels in a number of genres, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, historical novels and historical mysteries, much under a number of pseudonyms. And has been published—among other places—in Analog, Asimov’s and Amazing. For Baen, she has also written two popular fantasies, Draw One in the Dark, and its sequel, Gentleman Takes a Chance. She is inordinately fond of diners. Her According to Hoyt is one of the most interesting blogs on the internet. Originally from Portugal, she lives in Colorado (where the recent runaway fires gave her some anxious moments) with her husband, two sons and the surfeit of cats necessary to a die-hard Heinlein fan..

  * * *

  ANGEL IN FLIGHT

  By Sarah A. Hoyt

  When he heard the sirens and understood their meaning, Jarl knew he was going to die.

  He closed his eyes, then opened them again. He looked down at his hands, in the gray fingerless gloves, holding the circuits for the holo advertisements that flashed high on either side of the zipway, right above him, where he straddled the zipway wall. Beneath him flyers zipped, end on end, hundreds of miles an hour, towards Friedstadt and Eastern Europe beyond.

  The zipway bisected Europe east to west and the speeds and closeness of vehicles were only possible because driving had been turned over to a series of control towers. The passengers in the flyers had nothing to do but read the advertisements, until the zipway exited them at their chosen destination.

  His fingers were a purplish blue, the result of the biting cold of this December night. His body felt just as cold, of course, insufficiently protected by the baggy gray tunic that billowed in the snow-laden wind. And the knit pants that molded his skinny legs below weren’t much help, either. At least he’d put on two pairs of—borrowed—socks, beneath the thin slippers, which were all Hoffnungshaus ever gave its inmates. Which meant he could sort of feel his feet, and was probably not at risk of losing a toe or three.

  In fairness to Hoffnungshaus, Jarl had to admit the inmates weren’t ever supposed to leave Hoffnungshaus. Though he did, of course. And paid the price. He shrugged his sharp shoulder blades under the tunic, feeling again the sting of the last whipping.

  That was no matter. Nor were any other penalties associated with leaving Hoffnungshaus, nor even what they might do to his roommates, Bartolomeu and Xander, for having let him out yet again. No.

  Despite the cold, he felt sweat rolling down his forehead towards his eyes, and wiped it with the back of his sleeve.

  None of that mattered. Not his infraction in leaving Hoffnungshaus. Not how they might punish Bartolomeu and Xander. Nothing mattered because Jarl would be dead before morning.

  He looked down at his fingers in the open circuit box, purple fingers against the blue, green and red wires, and the snowflakes drifting in.

  Above him, the holo ad remained unchanged. He knew, from analyzing it, that it advertised the resort just up the zipway, at the next exit, from this spot. Eden Cavern, it was called, and he had no idea what it was like except for the advertising line that ran in cool green holographic letters, A taste of paradise.

  He couldn’t see the holograph—not the whole of it, at least—from where he sat. It was a mere shimmer of colors and disconnected dots, meant to be read from the zipway itself, as flyers zoomed by at hundreds of miles per hour. It was only through fast math that he could see, in his mind, clear as day, what it would look like and say to the people below. And he’d be a cyborg if he had the slightest idea why a res
ort used a naked woman wrapped in a serpent and holding up an apple as an advertisement.

  Perhaps they have prostitutes, he thought. And then the siren went again, and another series of sirens, and over the zipway, but facing him a long distance away—which meant he could read it even from where he was, a holographic sign showed, deep red against the black of the snowy night: Break from Freiwerk. All exits past Eden Cavern are closed. Traffic in the zipway will be stopped. Every flyer will be examined. For your safety cooperate with the authorities.

  Shit, I am so dead. His mind formed the words clearly. His body refused to get the message. Even as he thought the words, his numbed fingers were closing the control box on the wall, not bothering this time with re-locking the genlock he’d hacked into, just slamming it shut to prevent more snow from getting in. There was no point in wanton destruction.

  He felt at his waistband for his stolen burner, then looked towards the zipway, where flyers were slowly coming to a stop, starting at the distant horizon. The other way were dark fields, a couple of country roads, a golf course, a hunting preserve, and ten miles off, as straight as Jarl could run, Hoffnungshaus, where he would be missed as soon as head count was done at dawn. If he could get to it, he would be protected. Getting to it was the problem. What “break from Freiwerk” meant was that mules had rioted again, and a few of them had managed to escape the fortified work-camp. And if the authorities thought even one among them might be able to pass as a normal human, they would be looking at everyone’s hands.

  Jarl’s fingerless gloves stopped just short of the bright red band embedded in the skin of the ring finger on his left hand. The mark of a made human, an artifact. No different than the mules that had just escaped. In this sort of circumstances, he would be shot on sight. And that was if the mules didn’t get him first. Creatures manufactured as slaves, created to serve humans all their lives, were remarkably lacking in fellow feeling. And even if they could understand Jarl’s own situation, they’d probably feel zero empathy with him.