Tales From the Hunter Legacy Universe 1: Jane's Christmas (3 page)

Comfortably ensconced in a lounge chair,
Angel jumped up onto my lap, curled up, and went to sleep. Jeeves filled up my
ginger ale glass. Between too much food, several glasses of champagne, and
brandy butter, I was quite ready for an afternoon nap as well.

When everyone was seated, Jane entered,
causing quite a stir.

She was dressed up in the red costume she'd
tried to get me to wear.

She had long white whiskers.

She had a red nose.

She was carrying a large sack.

Behind her trooped in a dozen little people
dressed mainly in green.

"Are those elves?" asked Alana.

"Gee I hope so," said Amanda with
a laugh. "If they're not, it means I'm a lot drunker than I think I
am."

We all laughed.

"Small cargo droids," said Jane
through my PC.

The elves went over to the larger of the
packages.

"Santa left a few gifts," said
Jane.

"Santa?" asked Agatha.

The only part of the walls which wasn’t
draped, popped up a screen. We watched a vid of a sleigh being pulled by six
reindeer, flying in from space, and landing on the Flight Deck. It was taken
down one of the lifts to the Launch Deck, where it was unloaded by the elves.

"A few?" questioned BA.

It was more than a few. Jane seemed to be
learning how to use an understatement.

Seeming to deny the laws of space, more
packages came off the sleigh than there seemed to be room for them. When
unloading was complete, the sleigh was moved into a launch tube, from where it
sailed back out into space.

No-one commented on the apparent
impossibility of a sleigh with a large man in red on it, being pulled around
space by Earth animals.

The elves picked up the larger packages,
and deposited one each in front of the Alpha team.

They all looked at me.

"Don’t look at me," I said, with
my hands raised. "They're obviously for you, so open them."

Eyes turned to Annabelle instead. She
started ripping paper, and quickly revealed a grav chest. She keyed open the
top, and froze.

"Boss?" asked BA. "What's in
there?"

Annabelle wasn’t listening. She reached in
and started pulling things out. She lovingly hugged a framed still hollo, and
looked towards me with tears streaming down her face.

"What is it?" I asked her, now
feeling worried.

"This isn’t possible," she said
softly.

"What the…" came from BA, and was
repeated in one form or another by the rest of the team.

They all looked at me, with more than half
of them crying.

"How?" demanded Amanda, wiping
her cheeks.

"How what?" I said.

"How did you do this?"

"What?"

"Have you been holding out on us
Jon?" demanded Alison.

"Huh? I've no idea what you're talking
about."

Annabelle looked me straight in the eyes.

"Jon, how much did you collect from
where Moose was destroyed?"

"Moose? What are you talking
about?"

"How much?" demanded BA.

"Nothing. There wasn’t anything
recognizable to collect. All there was, was dust."

"Don't lie to us Jon," said
Aline.

"What? I'm not lying to you. Get Jane
to show you the debris field record if you don’t believe me."

"Well how have you done this?"
asked Annabelle.

"Done what?"

My voice was raised now. I honestly had no
idea what was going on. Dick and the others were sitting there looking totally
mystified. I shared the feeling.

Annabelle rose, and took a quick tour of
each of the grav chests. She stopped in front of me.

"These are our things from Moose. When
Moose was destroyed, we lost everything. With the life we lead, we don’t get
much chance to accumulate possessions, but we all had important things from our
past. Things which couldn’t be replaced. Lord knows we have enough funds to buy
anything we want now, but what we all wanted most, shouldn’t have been
available to buy. And yet, here it is. Not all of it for sure, but enough. How
did you do this?"

"I keep telling you, I didn’t."

"Jon's right," said Jane.
"He didn’t."

"Who did?" asked BA.

"Santa."

The room was dead quiet for a full minute.

The elves broke the silence by depositing
more packages, this time at the feet of those who hadn't had one yet.

"Have it your way Jon," said
Annabelle. "Whoever pulled off this miracle, thank you."

She bent down and hugged me, before returning
to her seat.

An elf placed a large package at my feet.
Trying not to disturb Angel, I pulled off the paper and found a large box. It
looked vaguely familiar. I looked to see if one side slid open, and it did.
Inside I could see antique style circuit boards. A screen popped up, asking for
permission to upload a menu. I let it do so, and looked it over. I was only one
screen in, when I realized what it was.

I looked over to Jane, who was placing a
small package in front of Dick.

"Jane, is this what I think it
is?"

"Yes."

Her grin was threatening to become larger
than her face.

I kept going through menu after menu, not
believing what I was seeing.

"Jon, what's up?" asked Amanda.
"Now you're the one who looks like crying."

"This is a computer," I said.
"A mixture of the antique and obsolete, merged with the new, which if I
understand the ramifications of the menu it installed in my PC, allows me to
play every single computer game I've ever played, and I lot I haven't, using
current hollo controls and screens. It's something I tried very hard to build a
few years ago, and never came close to getting to work. This is
impossible!"

"Welcome to the club," said
Alison, with a smile back on her face, but still with a wet cheek.

I looked around to see what the others were
doing.

Dick was sitting there with the strangest
look on his face, a pad in his hand.

"You ok Dick?" I asked him.

He looked around at me like he was in the
middle of a dream, and I’d just woken him up.

"You remember when you asked us about
what we were doing instead of learning history?"

"Yep, you said reading detective
novels."

"This," he said waving the pad at
me, "seems to have every detective story ever written on it."  His
voice was awed. "There's books here I've heard talked about, which have
been missing for centuries." He looked around the room, almost in a daze.
"Santa, thank you!"

An elf deposited two small parcels in my
lap. One of them had the word 'Angel' on it, so I unwrapped it first. It was a
new mouse. I laid it on top of her, and waited to see if she would notice. She
didn’t.

The other package was a bit bigger, and I
opened it to find a bright yellow rubber duck. I burst into hysterical
laughter, which woke Angel, who jumped off, spilling the mouse onto the floor.

I laughed so hard I’d have fallen out of
just about any other chair. Everyone looked at me, smiles back on faces.

"Sorry, private joke, I think. Santa
has a sense of humour."

Everyone went back to unwrapping.

My next package stopped me cold. I was
almost afraid to touch them.

There were five actual books. Real books,
made from paper. They looked old. I’d not seen their like outside the museum at
home. I carefully looked at the spines.

The first was labelled "Hitch Hikers
Guide to the Galaxy." It was a full series set. I carefully opened the
first book, and found they'd been printed early in the 21
^st
century.
It was amazing they were in as good condition as they were. I placed them on
the floor by my computer, wondering which museum they'd been stolen out of. But
if someone had asked me which book was the most I'd like to own, these were
those.

There was a bleep from my pad, and I looked
at it to find the same books highlighted on my reading list. I hadn't done a
lot of reading since leaving Outback, preferring instead to watch vids. So my
pad had very few books on it. Now, there was a long menu of books to choose
from. I placed my pad back in the pouch my suit belt was providing for it,
since I was wearing civvies for once.

And took it straight out again when it
bleeped for attention again. I threw the vid to the wall.

O'Neal stood there in a similar room to our
own, with a smaller group of people, all with glasses raised, and wished us all
a Merry Christmas.

Another vid came in, this time from David,
with the Hunter's Haven lake in the background, and a huge number of people all
celebrating around him.

The pad went back into its pouch.

"Are we finished with presents
Jane," I asked her sub-vocally.

"Almost, but do your vid now."

I stood up, holding my half full glass of
ginger ale. The room grew silent as they saw me waiting.

I nodded to Jane, knowing a vid would start
recording the room.

I made a short speech wishing everyone
viewing a Merry Christmas from all of us here on BigMother, exhorting everyone
to take the time to hug their loved ones, and enjoy the festivities. Then I
proposed a toast, and the whole room wished everyone viewing a very Merry
Christmas.

Jane played it back for us, and sent it off
to everyone who…, well, everyone.

Elves were circulating collecting torn
paper for recycling, and making inroads to the mess scattered around the floor.
Angel was batting her mouse around, trying to keep it from Nut.

Jane came around, and gave us one last
small parcel each. I unwrapped mine to find a small case. The top hinged back,
and inside, I found a plain gold ring. It was hallmarked as solid gold I
noticed. I looked around to find the others all had rings as well, but most of
them were much more ornate than mine, which resembled a plain wedding band.

"Jane?" I asked her.

"Santa," we both said together,
and everyone laughed.

"There has to be a story about
these," said Aline.

"There is," answered Jane.

Everyone looked at her attentively. Her
appearance changed. Ears became pointed, hair long and fair, now dressed in
long flowing silk robes.

"It began with the creation of the rings
of purpose."

"Three were given to the Leaders,
wisest of all."

Images of Annabelle, O'Neil, and David
appeared on the wall. Come to think of it, there had been rings on the fingers
of O'Neal and David I hadn't seen before. Annabelle held her hand up for all to
see her ring.

"Five were given to the Pilots, who
range far and wide in the pursuit of peace."

The five faces of Lacey and the original 266
pilots appeared on the wall, and they all held their hands up for all to see.

"Seven were given to the Doers."

The faces of Amy, Dick, Annette, Eric,
Grace, Melissa, and Miriam appeared, and those present raised their hands for
all to see. And now I thought about it, Miriam had been wearing a ring.

"And nine were given to the Alphas,
who above all else, crave bashing in heads."

Everyone laughed, and Amanda, Aleesha,
Alison, BA, Abagail, Aline, Alana, Agatha, and George, raised their hands for
all to see, as their faces appeared on the wall.

"For within these rings was bound the
strength and will to do what must be done."

"But they were all of them relieved,
for another ring was made. Deep in the realm of North Pole, in the fires of
Mount Gloom, the Light Lord Santa forged a master ring. And into it, he poured
all of his Love, Light and Forgiveness. One ring to command them all."

She looked at me. I slipped my ring on, and
held my hand up for all to see.

Jane's appearance changed again. Now she
looked like an old man, in rough spun grey robes, a long grey beard, and tall
pointy grey hat.

"This is the One Ring."

"One ring to command them all."

"One ring to find them."

"One ring to bring them all, and in
the Starlight, bind them."

There was dead silence, broken only when I
couldn’t hold it in any longer, and burst out laughing. Grace followed, and the
two of us cackled away with the rest wondering what was funny.

Jane shifted back to her normal self. And I
managed to get a grip again.

"Better schedule the original flat
screens for the theater tomorrow," I told her. "Extended
versions."