The Christmas Planet and Other Stories (Beta Version) Read online

  * * *

  Wrong. My girls finally convinced me I should be less of a homebody and have lots more goodwill toward men—and Kikmots. I was actually looking forward to it. A bit.

  Someone had to interview me before they would approve us for our trip to the Kikmot’s planet.

  I drove to San Francisco to use one of California’s ten holographic meeting pods. An example of the many new technologies we’d gained from the Galactic Association, getting together with someone in a pod was visually identical to meeting them live. The participants could walk around each other and do anything but touch. It drastically cut down on the need for physical travel.

  So much had changed since Earth was accepted—provisionally—into the loose collection of civilizations in the Milky Way. The association included only forty-three separate societies. That wasn’t a lot if you considered that the galaxy held four hundred billion stars. Life turned out to be rarer than expected.

  The association had existed for nine million years when it discovered Earth in 2018. They detected us through a probe that wandered the galaxy searching for sentient beings. They gave us gradual access to the GWW or Galaxy-Wide Web, holding back only that information we weren’t ready for. The resulting boost in science, technology, and even sociology dwarfed all advances from our past.

  My appointed time found me waiting in line by the communication pod. I would meet with a Kikmot known as Hakupha. The chamber sat in a typical office space, the kind that would normally house cubicles. The pod was the size of a commercial van. Stainless steel with rounded corners, it reminded me of an Airstream trailer without wheels. A technician with a headset—a human—sat at an attached console.

  When I reached the front of the queue, he glanced up at me. “It will just be a minute, Mr. Corby.”

  I leaned to the side to see his screen. It showed a man and a woman standing on opposite sides of a conference table, engaged in a heated conversation. I tried to guess which one was real, and which was the hologram. It was impossible.

  The technician flipped a switch. “Thirty seconds, please.”

  When the timer display reached zero, the desk and the man gradually faded to gray. A panel in the pod slid aside, and the woman came out, dabbing away some tears with a tissue. In the pod, she’d had long red hair, but in real life, her hair was much shorter and brown.

  “Okay, Mr. Corby. You’ll be meeting with a Mr. Hakupha who is in New York City. Neither of you have requested any enhancements. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  “All right. You may go in.”

  “Thank you.” I stepped in. All the surfaces—walls, floor, ceiling—were padded. I pushed my hand against the wall—thick memory foam. Just as I was removing my hand, the room changed into the living room of a country home, decorated for Christmas. A fire crackled in a stone fireplace, and a brown sofa held cushions embroidered with reindeer. The room was full-sized despite the small dimensions of the pod. I pushed my hand against the wall again. It was there and offered resistance, but my impression was I was pushing against an invisible force field.

  Hakupha materialized in front of me as if beamed into the pod with a Star Trek transporter. He stood by the fireplace.

  He bowed. “Merry Christmas, Mr. Corby.” His S’s were pronounced like T’s, so “Christmas” sounded like “Critmit.”

  I bowed.

  I’d seen pictures of the Kikmots but wasn’t prepared to see one in the holographic flesh.

  For years, scientists had speculated that sentient aliens from other planets might look nothing like humans. Given the diversity of life on Earth—consider the differences between giraffes and blobfish—how could we expect aliens with a totally independent origin to look like us? However, about half the advanced alien forms followed the general format of two legs, two arms, and a head.

  The Kikmots were no exception. Hakupha was small, coming up only to my waist. I couldn’t see all of his body because he was dressed up like an elf, but the first impression was that he looked like a small human with the head of a dog. If you’ve ever seen a YouTube video in which a guy puts his dog in a big coat and acts as the dog’s hands while it eats food off a plate, you’ve got the general feeling.

  Hakupha’s hands had five fingers but with three digits and two opposable thumbs on each side. And they were covered with tan fur. His head resembled that of a Pomeranian but with human-like eyes. The overall impression fell somewhere between cute and creepy.

  Hakupha walked around me. Is he going to sniff me? He didn’t, but the examination was uncomfortably thorough. Hasn’t he seen humans before? At one point his elbow would have knocked into my thigh, but because he was just a hologram, it passed through me.

  He completed his circuit and stood in front of me, well within my personal space, and looked up. “How did you find out about our program?”

  I told him about Guccio and the brochure. I couldn’t interpret his facial expressions, of course. I can read dogs pretty well, but this was a completely different animal.

  He went through his questions quickly. Many were what I’d expected: What is your attitude toward aliens? Do you suffer from motion sickness? What do you hope to get from this experience? Others were strange: How many close friends do you have? What are your dreams like? Do you have any pets?

  At the end, Hakupha told me he “ecpected” we’d be approved without problem, and that he himself would be accompanying this year’s group of tourists. He’d be our guide.

  A timer on the wall counted down the final seconds of the interview. We bowed to one another, and the Christmasy room morphed into the padded chamber.

  * * *

  Sophia, Charli, and I reported to the paratransit center in San Francisco on December 23, 2022. Boonie didn’t get to come. He would spend Christmas with our neighbors. Too bad. I would have liked to see how he reacted to a Kikmot.

  Surprisingly, although the Galactic Association had developed FTL transmission of information, us humans discovered FTL travel only after being contacted by a civilization of creatures—called Celanos—who lived on Earth but in a parallel universe. Yeah, welcome to the wild and wacky world of quantum physics.

  The Celanos had developed a device—a paratransitter—that allowed travel from one universe to another. Working together with them, our scientists found that by transitting to a neighboring universe then back to a new location in the original world, we were able to exceed the universal speed limit—the speed of light.

  The first paratransitters were expensive, requiring exotic materials—even antimatter—but with the combined brainpower of scientists and engineers from around the galaxy, the devices soon became more practical. Most major cities had at least one device.

  The paratransitter sat in an echoey room the size of an aircraft hangar. The visible components of the device included a large dish suspended on a frame and a corresponding dish on the floor. These two dishes looked as though they were grasping the top and bottom of an invisible sphere. Some thick tubing stretched beyond the edges of the disks, but the spherical space inside was empty.

  Because the device was in high demand, the paratransits occurred one after another with only seconds in between. If you didn’t know better, you’d think we lived in some dystopian, overpopulated world, and a long line of undesirables had reported for annihilation. That is, a person or group of up to four individuals stepped into the device, and in the blink of a human eye, they vanished. The next traveler or travelers stepped in, and blip, they disappeared.

  The alien in front of us looked nothing like a human being. The closest Earth analog would be an octopus with scales.

  Once it vanished, my family stepped into the seashell-like lower dish of the device. I held Sophia’s hand, and she pressed herself tightly against my leg. Perhaps she was thinking a trip to a pet shop might have been a better way to play with some puppies.

  My paratransits had been on earlier versions of the device, and each jump required thirty seconds or s
o. They were accompanied by roller coaster sensations and visual disturbances. Our current jump took only seconds.

  I looked around, confused. I’d expected we’d rematerialize in the plaza of a quaint Christmasy village, but that wasn’t what happened.

  “What’s going on, Jake?” Charli squeezed my hand.

  “I’m not sure.” We were in a smaller paratransit device in what looked like a wide-bodied airplane with nine seats across. Large windows in the ceiling showed stars. We were in space.

  Hakupha bowed and hurried us to our assigned seats. He said, “Welcome. Please sit here. The next group will arrive immediately.”

  I sat in the airline seat, clearly made to look like the Earth equivalent. “Where are we?”

  He bowed again. “I will answer all your questions in a moment. Please be patient.” Antwer all your quet-i-ons.

  “What did he say, Daddy?”

  I explained it to her, then scooched up in my seat and looked around for Guccio. There he was, in the back row, in conversation with a woman of about his age. I waved, but he didn’t see me.

  Tourists continued to pop into existence in front of us. Finally, all the seats were filled, and our host stepped up onto a raised platform.

  “Merry Christmas to all of you. Thank you for choosing us for this most sacred of your human holidays.” Except for the S and T problem, his English was pretty good. “Instead of paratransitting you directly to our humble planet, we thought you’d enjoy arriving the old-fashioned way, via spaceliner. This way, you can enjoy an orientation video and perhaps have a refreshing nap. The trip will take only eight hours, and the stewardesses will shortly bring you a wonderful and delicious eggnog.”

  Sophia tugged my sleeve. “What’s a steward-ett-ett?” She seemed to be taking the adventure in stride. Charli also seemed to be enjoying the experience.

  I explained Hukupha’s speech impediment to Sophia—steward-ett-ett meant stewardesses. I kept my voice light although I was suspicious. Eight hours? Totally unnecessary. We could have had the orientation film and eggnog on the planet itself. What the hell was going on?

  That eggnog, however, was delicious. They must have put rum in the drinks for the adults because halfway through the video I couldn’t keep my eyes open.

  * * *

  Hakupha clapped his hands and made some barking noises. I blinked myself awake and leaned over Sophia to look out the portholes. We were no longer in space but on a snow-covered field. A pair of orange moons rested above the horizon, one round, one egg-shaped.

  I rubbed the top of my head and my fingers came back with a tiny dab of goo. It felt like hair gel, which I don’t use. I looked up, but there was nothing that might have dripped. I smelled it. It had a strange medicinal odor, reminding me of the cherry scent of some portable toilets. Rubbing both hands over my hair, I didn’t find any more.

  Hakupha frowned at me, apparently noticing my puzzlement.

  I smiled, waved, and gave him a thumbs up.

  Standing, I gazed around the cabin. My impression was that everyone had been sleeping. My two girls woke.

  Sophia pointed out the window. “Look, Daddy! Sleighs!”

  I bent down and looked out. Sure enough, a line of fifteen horse-drawn sleighs, each pulled by two horses, came gliding across the meadow.

  Hakupha clapped his hands again. “All right now, folks. Please put on your winter clothing. I will now open the doors. The temperature outside is just above the freezing point of water.”

  The doors hissed open, displaying a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting. Steam puffed out from the horse’s noses. The two horses in the lead sleigh shook their heads, setting their bells to jingling.

  We bundled up, and Sophia jumped up and down, her eyes bright.

  Charli hugged my arm, pulled me down, and gave me a peck on the cheek. “This is wonderful. I always forget how much I miss the snow.”

  Each sleigh was Santa Claus red and decked out with pine boughs and holly. There were three rows of seats per sleigh, with seating for twelve.

  We waited in line then walked down the ramp and stepped up and into the first row of our sleigh. The “horses” had two tails each.

  I jumped my head back. “Did you see that?”

  Charli snuggled closer. “What?”

  “I think one of the horses just said something to the other horse. He whispered something.”

  She chuckled. “So? Let’s not spoil this, Jake. Sure, this is like Disneyland. It’s not real. Don’t look too closely behind the curtains, okay?”

  She had a point. I spread a blanket over our laps and we jingled off across the field. I had forgotten to see what Guccio was up to. Were things progressing with the woman he’d been talking with? I stood and looked back to the other sleighs, but they were too far away. I couldn’t see him.

  “What are you looking at, Jake?” Charli asked.

  “I was curious about Guccio. Did you see him get in a sleigh?”

  She laughed. “Gordon’s a big boy. He can take care of—”

  “I was just curious.” I sat back down.

  The horse-like creatures slowed as they pulled us up a hill. We passed under an arch and into a quaint town—like a Swiss village. The buildings were in the Tudor style with half-timbered construction. The streets were narrow with enough snow to keep the sleighs happy. I guessed cobblestones hid under the snow, but of course, it was probably some tough polymer instead.

  The happy chatter of the sleigh passengers echoed off the shops and restaurants that lined the streets. The sun—suns?—had recently set, and lights from inside the boutiques had a warm glow. A distant bell tower rang with Silent Night, and snow started falling.

  If the Kikmots have theme parks for creatures from different worlds, they must have exquisite control over climate. It was a mild winter where we were, but perhaps over a hill it was two-hundred degrees with a methane atmosphere for blimp-sized cloud creatures celebrating their annual mating festival.

  I watched some Kikmots supervising the unloading of the sleighs. They were so cute that I needed to remind myself not to underestimate their intelligence and technological skills. It was hard to imagine puppy dogs who understood gravitational waves. They were far more advanced than humans.

  When our sleigh arrived at the hotel, two Kikmots ushered us across the sidewalk and into the building’s revolving door. It was the first door of that type Sophia had seen, and she clenched my hand as we went through it. We walked up a few steps and our gasps joined those of the other guests.

  The lobby was two stories high with an elaborate gold-and-white tin ceiling. Spirals of pine boughs extended up ten thick pillars. The carpeting matched the ceiling, and the far end of the room held a huge Christmas tree. This one wasn’t orange. The lights and ornaments on the tree sparkled and red ribbons led the eye up to a twinkling star at the top.

  Hakupha stood on a stage in front of the tree, and the other Kikmots herded everyone to him. I estimated one-hundred-and-fifty holiday revelers. While Hakupha recited some safety regulations and talked about upcoming events, I scanned the crowd. No Guccio, but I saw the woman he’d been talking with on the spaceliner. I transferred Sophia’s hand to Charli and told Charli I’d be right back.

  I sidled through the crowd until I was by her side. She was around fifty, pleasantly plump with salt and pepper hair. There was a lull in Hakupha’s monologue, and I tapped her on the shoulder.

  “Excuse me,” I said. “I noticed you were talking with my friend Gordon Guccio on the spaceliner. I haven’t seen him since we arrived, and I was wondering if you knew where he went.”

  With the mention of his name, her face darkened. She looked around. “No. We were hitting it off pretty well. I thought so, anyway. I fell asleep during the flight and didn’t wake up until people were leaving the space plane or whatever. His seat was empty. I guess he’s avoiding me and doing a good job of it, because I don’t see him anywhere. I guess I didn’t make a good impression or I’m not pretty
enough for him. Are you with the singles group?” Did she sound hopeful?

  I assured her that Gordon wouldn’t have blown her off like this—would he?—and that I’d let her know when I found him.

  Back at Charli’s side, she gave me a questioning glance. I told her I’d explain later.

  Hakupha climbed down from his platform, and everyone lined up to get a present from under the tree and a room assignment. When I asked about Guccio, he directed me to the front desk. With Charli and Sophia in tow, I asked the hotel clerk, who looked more like a schnauzer than a Pomeranian, about Guccio, and she—he?—consulted a virtual screen I couldn’t see.

  “Uh … Let’s see … Ah, hear it is. Your friend Mr. Guccio elected to join a group of singles that participated in a dog-sledding race. I’m sure you’ll see him at some of the festivities.”

  “There are other groups?”

  “Oh, yes sir. Based on interests.”

  “I don’t remember anything about dog sledding,” I said.

  “That activity was presented only to singles. You’re in the family group.”

  “But we didn’t hear—”

  “I’m sorry sir, but …” He gestured behind me.

  A line had formed. I would have stuck around and eavesdropped to see if others were missing as well, but Charli and Sophia were getting impatient. I joined them by the elevators, and we took one to the third floor and walked down the hall toward our room. I was going to keep them close.

  “What would you like to do tomorrow, Sophia?” I asked.

  “I want to go to Santa’s ranch and pet the puppies.”

  The door to our room somehow knew it was us and automatically unlocked. I led the way in. “That sounds good to me. You can probably meet Santa.”

  “Oh, Daddy, I know he’s a lie.”

  “A lie?” Charli asked.

  “Yes. Parents made him up so they can say we have to be good or Santa won’t come down the chimney. Remember, you used to say ‘Santa’s watching!’ Can we open the presents now?”