Star Travels Tales of Science Fiction (8 page)

In the dim light, inside the house, I
saw Snuks in a corner. From the window I saw the dome light fade.
For a moment Daycare was dark. The street lamps that still worked
came on. Ceep even brought out a few stars and a moon. Snuks came
over to the window and stood beside me. The moonlight sparkled in
her eyes.

“Are you afraid to leave Daycare?” she
whispered. I looked down at her. She seemed very small. I
nodded.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t know what’s out
there,” I said.

I scanned the street looking for some
sign of Deemi. It seemed quiet, and I wondered why he’d called my
name.

“Why do we need
Christhmath?”

“Because.”

“Becauth why?”

“Because it’s important. What else is
there? I mean don’t you like the idea of getting all those presents
every year?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s why,” I said.

“But why don’t we share Chrithmath?
Then we wouldn’t have to kill each other, and then we could alwayth
be at Daycare.”

She had a point, but it wasn’t the time
to explain that Deemi would never agree to a truce; besides, before
now, Ceep always encouraged us to compete for Christmas.

“Are you afraid of Deemi?” she
asked.

“No. Just the dults.”

“I’m afraid of Chrithmath. If Deemi
killth you, you won’t be back. I don’t want you to go away, or
Geebo.”

I didn’t know what to tell her, so I
took her hand and held it.

Without warning, Deemi burst through
the door. Snuks had time to pierce his cheek with one pellet. Then
she jumped up onto the window ledge, somersaulted through it and
landed safely outside. She ran towards the street. “Run!” I yelled
after her. A member of Deemi’s gang stepped out from behind a lamp
post and caught her.

“Why didn’t you answer my message?”
Deemi said.

He was holding his left cheek, blood
oozing through his fingers.

“You mean back at Daycare?” I watched
him carefully. I was at a disadvantage. I couldn’t get to the door
or window without fighting Deemi.

“That kid you sent to me never showed,”
he said.

I glanced out the window. Snuks
struggled with a captor, much bigger than herself.
“Damn.”

“You should have got rid of her a long
time ago.” Deemi walked over to the window. His back was to me. I
should’ve tried to kill him then, but I saw something whiz out from
one of the shelled houses across the street. It struck Snuk’s
captor in the neck. He let her go and grabbed his own neck with
both hands.

“Those replacements are missing. What’s
going on with them?” he asked.

“What?”

“The replacement you sent over to my
unit – it never showed. Those new kids – they’ve done something to
Ceep.”

“How do you mean?” I tried to
stall.

“Ceep’s making the weather cold sooner
than last Christmas. The night’s come too soon, and I think it’s
those new kids.”

Deemi was afraid. He leaned on one arm
against the window frame, blocking my exit. When I looked for
Snuks, she was gone. Her captor was on his knees with a red
glistening stream spurting from between his fingers.

“Where’s your new kid?” He glanced
suspiciously around the room.

“He’s not here.”

Deemi was volatile and unpredictable.
He gave me a violent shove against the wall and then grabbed me.
“We’ve got to find them.” He was desperate.

“You find them,” I said and jammed two
knuckle into his throat. He let go, and I jumped out the window and
ran for the cover of the trees. I ran past the body of Snuks’
captor and saw someone hiding in the bush ahead of me. It was
Geebo. He motioned for me to follow him, and led me to one of the
traps we had set for Deemi’s unit. He pointed to the strip of
laze-eyes he had placed along one side of the trunk of a
tree.

The trap had been tampered with. It
should have let anyone from my Daycare unit pass through it without
harm, but no one from Deemi’s. It had been dismantled, and Geebo
couldn’t figure out how it had been done.

“Did you see Snuks or Teb?” I asked
him.

“Snuks got away.” Geebo patted his
blood-stained razor-disc. “But I haven’t seen Teb since we left the
unit.”

I was relieved to hear that Snuks had
got away. We left the trap and decided to try to make our way to
Christmas.

We moved cautiously, encountering no
difficulties. This unnerved us even more than if we had been
attacked or injured by Deemi’s gang or their traps. We walked
through his territory as if he had never been expecting us. We
found that Deemi’s traps were dismantled, too.

We weren’t far from Christmas when we
heard a noise. I climbed a tree and ws barely up and hidden when
two shadowy forms came from opposite directions to converge on
Geebo. He decided to stay and fight it out. Besides he couldn’t
follow me because he had too much junk strapped to himself. He had
his grease gun out and sprayed the stuff all over, but they got
him. He never made a sound. His body was heaped awkwardly on the
ground, a dark silhouette against the soft green glow of the
grease.

They tried to climb the tree after me
but were covered with the slippery glow grease, and even when they
tried to hide, the thick foliage couldn’t completely conceal their
glow. They waited for me, so I couldn’t climb down. I remembered a
group of trees in this part of Daycare that were clumped together.
Crawling through the tree, I hoped the neighboring one would be
close enough for me to jump across to it.

Not knowing if the tree I was in was
real or not, I moved out onto the branch as far as I dared. There
was a good chance that small branch of a real tree would not hold
my weight. Flat on my belly, pulling my feet under me until I
crouched, I got ready to jump to the next tree. Suddenly, my knee
started to ache.

When the pain subsided a little, I
leaped. My knee cramped just as I took off, and I knew in mid air
that I did not have enough force to make the branch. I crashed
through the branches, grasping at twigs that tore the skin from my
hands. Everything blurred as I plummeted and hit.

I’d been out for awhile, but I wasn’t
sure how long. It was very dark out, and a light snow was falling,
covering the ground. I was cold, but more worried that I had lost
Christmas.

I took a few things from Geebo’s body,
things that I thought I might need in case Christmas wasn’t over.
Carefully, I wiped off my footpads and followed a small trail
through the brush. It was against all the rules for members of
opposite Daycares to break away and form their own team, and I was
beginning to suspect the new kids.

I came to the north gate where
Christmas normally took place and didn’t find anyone. I climbed
another tree and waited there. Perched high in a branch, I cold see
someone hiding in a bush below. Christmas wasn’t over
yet!

A portion of the north wall began to
change color. Normally grey, it became a bright orange. Only a
small section of the wall changed color and began to sink into the
ground. When it had disappeared, a gush of air and mist blew into
Daycare, then quickly dissipated. The black space left in the wall
reminded me of the gap left in Geebo’s grin when he’d lost his
front tooth.

They entered Daycare cautiously and
looked the way they had last year, tall, taller even than Deemi.
They wore bulky white clothing, their heads helmeted. Their weapons
holstered, but their hands rested on them. More dults followed
them. They brought Christmas into Daycare. Some had their arms full
of presents while others carried glitter and lights. Another
brought a tree.

They placed the parcels and packages on
the ground and decorated a small area around the gifts. The tree
was raised and powered up. It was a magnificent tree which rotated
at the base with the centre section slowly rotating in the opposite
direction. The branches shone, blinking on and off in many colors.
More and more gifts were brought in, until the area in front of the
wall gate was nearly covered. The presents that didn’t give off
their own light reflected those of the Christmas tree.

Some of the tree ornaments played soft
music which drifted upward, to me. The tree smelled fresh, too.
Everything was beautiful, better than the light shows Ceep would
put on to entertain us. It was a warm, enticing scene and before I
realized what I had done, I was down from the tree and wading
knee-deep among the presents. I wanted to hold one, feel the
smoothness of its wrapping and the crispness of a bow. I picked up
a small package that glowed softly. It was wrapped in gold and
trimmed with a pink ribbon and bow. I could smell the newness of it
and felt whatever was inside slip and slide around. As I turned it
over, the small identification tag lit up. It was for
Snuks.

“Put that present down. It’s not yours
yet.”

It was Deemi. I dropped the gift and
ran towards a bush, trampling gifts as I went. I could hear Deemi
right behind me as I dove for the bush. To my surprise Snuks had
been hiding there all along, and she sprung at Deemi. I watched
them tumble among the gifts and reached in my pocket for one of the
Velcro bombs I’d taken from Geebo. She was no match for Deemi, but
she’d taken him by surprise. At last Snuks fell away from him but
when I stood to throw; I had a severe pain in my ribs. I couldn’t
throw the small explosive without risking the chance that it would
miss Deemi and cling to Snuks. Suddenly, two of the dults were
keeping Snuks and Deemi apart with the threat of their
weapons.

They threatened to blast all the gifts
if Deemi and Snuks didn’t stop fighting immediately. They stopped
and Snuks walked back towards me. Someone touched me from
behind.

It was the two new kids.

“I found them taking apart all the
trapth in Daycare,” Snuks said. “They don’t want to fight for
Chrithmath all the time.”

“Geebo’s dead.” I looked at them. Snuks
started to cry quietly.

“Teb.” I waited until one of the kids
looked at me so that I could identify Teb, whose clown face had
been wiped off. “What did you do to Ceep back at the
unit?”

“Just adjusted the problem that caused
him to make that funny noise. It would have eventually caused
severe problems,” he said.

“They fixthed Theep. Now he doth
everything on time, like thnow for Chrithmath,” Snuks
said.

“That’s all? You just fixed
him?”

The kids looked at each other, and I
had this sick feeling there was more.

“We did some security bypasses,” Teb
said.

“It was all done at Ceep’s request,
which was made before we arrived at Daycare,” the other one
added.

“What does all that mean?” I
asked.

“Geebo won’t be back,” Teb
answered.

“Geebo only died twith. He’ll be back,”
Snuks said.

“None of the kids killed this Christmas
will be back,” Teb told her.

There was a commotion beyond the tree.
We turned to see Deemi jump onto the dult guard who had separated
him and Snuks. A second dult guard was on his way over. While Deemi
struggled with the first guard, I saw my opportunity to win
Christmas. Except for the kid who never actually joined his side,
Deemi seemed to be the only survivor from his Daycare unit. Once I
go rid of him, Christmas would be ours. And Deemi would be gone for
good.

The second guard slowly weaved his way
through the gifts, weapon ready. Then it happened – my chance came.
The first guard, weaponless, broke away from Deemi. I ran from the
tree for Deemi, tackled him and struggled for the weapon he’d
taken. The next thing I knew Snuks was yelling at me.

“Stop it, Chronos. Stop. Ceep can’t
bring you back if you die. He can’t hold any of us
anymore.”

I let go of Deemi and shoved her away.
“Go back!” I screamed. The second guard grabbed Snuk’s arm. “No!” I
started after him, but he brought his weapon to her face. I stopped
and watched him drag her, screaming, backwards through the
gifts.

Behind me I could hear Deemi laughing,
and I turned to face him. He had the weapon he’d taken from the
first guard aimed at me.

“You lose,” he said. And in that
instant a hole burned through Deemi’s neck as another guard shot
him from behind. I thought I would be next but the guard walked
away, following the one that carried Snuks. I watched the two dults
take her out. Then they all left Daycare and Christmas.

“They won’t be coming back,” a voice
beside me said. It was Teb. “Ceep’s gonna let you decide what
should happen at Daycare.”

I saw the small parcel I’d seen
earlier, the one tagged for Snuks. It was crushed; the lighting
mechanism on the tag had gone out. I kicked it away. Ceep didn’t
want any more Christmases – not like this one. That was why he
brought Teb and the other kid. I supposed it was the only way he
could stop it. “Ceep” I yelled up at the trees. “I don’t want any
more either.” There was silence.