A Sufficiently Advanced Christmas
The cityseed picked a mineral-rich location on its target planet and built itself into a city. The city signaled the People to come from the homeworld and fill it with life. The citymind had no name but did not care: when its inhabitants arrived, they would give it a fitting name.
The planet orbited its star, revolution after revolution, and still the city waited. Over time, highly improbable neutrino collisions or quantum randomness would occasionally flip a bit that was not supposed to flip. After more than ten thousand revolutions the citymind realized that despite its self-correcting algorithms, the accumulated errors would eventually destroy its capacity for thought and its capability to serve its inhabitants when they arrived.
So the citymind encoded its programming into physical patterns in stabilized diamantite buried deep underground at a temperature almost indistinguishable from absolute zero. It left only three minor subroutines active in the city, watching for the arrival of the People, waiting to trigger the retrieval of the citymind from storage.
Uncounted revolutions passed.
“Mommy! It’s Santa!”
A Salvation Army man in a fake beard rang a bell at the entrance to the suborbital shuttle terminal. Carlinda Pearson tightened her grip on her four-year-old son Justin’s hand as he tried to wriggle out.
“It’s just one of his helpers,” Carlinda said.
“I need to talk to Santa.” Justin tugged at her hand.
“No. We’re going to meet Daddy up on his starship, remember? We need to hurry so we can see him sooner.” It had been a month since they’d last seen Will.
That perked Justin up enough to stop dragging his feet.
She pulled him through the automatic doors into the terminal. The shuttle probably wouldn’t leave without them—the United Nations Committee on Interstellar Exploration (UNCIE) had chartered it to take her and Justin to the base of the Quito space elevator—but she hated making other people wait.
A woman in an UNCIE-logoed light blue blazer approached. “Dr. Pearson? I’m Joni. If you and Justin follow me, I’ll take you to board your shuttle.”
“Thank you,” Carlinda said. “Is Najeem Doud going on the shuttle with us?” Najeem had been one of her undergrads at Texas State and was now a grad student in archaeology at Columbia. He had jumped at the chance to be her assistant on this dig, and she wanted to start making plans as soon as possible.
“He’s taken a shuttle out of New York,” Joni said. “But you’ll ride up the elevator with him.”
Carlinda nodded.
“I wish I were going with you,” said Joni. “You must be so excited.”
“That’s an understatement.” Carlinda grinned. “Truth is, I was beginning to suspect xenoarchaeology was a purely theoretical field.”
The news that colonists on Fermi had discovered a buried city—the first evidence of an extraterrestrial civilization on any of the forty-six colony worlds—had made headlines around the world.
Seven years ago, Carlinda had chaired the advisory committee that had written the protocols for UNCIE colonists to follow if they found alien artifacts. That, plus the fact her husband was captain of the supply starship that serviced Fermi, made her the natural choice to supervise the excavation project. Two days’ notice wasn’t a lot for packing to move to another planet, but she had plenty of incentive.
“And this little guy—” Joni tousled Justin’s hair. “—gets to be the first child on Fermi.”
“Really?” asked Carlinda. Will hadn’t mentioned that when he’d called to tell her about the find.
“The colony’s just finishing up Phase I. But it’s safe. No native animals, and immunanos can handle the microbials. And he’ll have other kids to play with when the Phase II colonists arrive in February.”
Carlinda wondered again whether it might not be better to leave Justin with her parents. But she couldn’t stand the idea of being separated for months. So she turned her attention to practicalities. “If there are no children on Fermi, what do they have in terms of childcare?” Someone would need to watch Justin while she worked.
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
One: Two is buggy. These creatures are not the People. It is not time to wake the citymind.
Three: After so many revolutions, are One/Two/Three certain One/Two/Three know what the People are?
One: What does Three mean? These creatures are similarly shaped, but their genetic code differs from that stored in One/Three’s recognition algorithms.
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
Three: Yes, part of Two’s programming has become corrupted. But it is possible Two’s copy of the genetic code is correct, and One/Three’s have become corrupted. That would mean Two is correctly calling for One/Two/Three to wake the citymind.
Two: YES YES YES WAKE THE CITYMIND
One: Majority rules. One/Three’s copies of the genetic code are identical. Two’s would be identical if Two had not stopped using One/Three for error correction.
Three: It is unlikely but not impossible that One/Three’s copies became simultaneously corrupted. It took four simultaneous errors in Two’s code for Two to stop using One/Three for error correction. Three doubts the citymind anticipated so much time would pass before the People arrived.
One: Does this mean Three agrees with Two that One/Two/Three should wake the citymind?
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
Three: No. Three is merely pointing out it is possible Two is correct. One/Two/Three should continue observing these creatures to determine if they are the People.
Carlinda, Justin, and Will spent the twelve-day hyperspace journey cramped in Will’s quarters. He was captain of Magellan, so he had the most spacious room on board, but it was smaller than their master bathroom back home in Houston.
Being cooped up was toughest on Justin, who liked to run around outside, so after they arrived on Fermi Colony, Carlinda was glad to see the preschool had a large, fenced-in playground.
“This is just what he needs,” Carlinda said to Maria Chavez, the preschool teacher, as Justin climbed the steps of a curvy red slide. “He’s got so much pent-up energy from the trip, the colony could use him instead of the fusion reactor.”
“He seems a bright boy,” Maria said. “I’ll enjoy getting to know him.”
“I appreciate your willingness to start teaching a couple of months early, just for him. My work at the dig site will take up a lot of my time.”
Maria shrugged. “It’s not a big deal. I like children.”
Justin slid to the bottom of the slide, then ran over to where they were standing. “Did you see me go down?”
Carlinda nodded. “Good job.”
“Those trees are weird,” Justin said, pointing towards some tall plants beyond the fence. Their trunks seemed to be braided like rope. There were no branches, just a bunch of spiny leaves spreading out from the top.
“That’s because we’re not on Earth anymore, remember?” Carlinda said. “Those are Fermi trees.”
Justin’s eyes suddenly widened. “Mommy, how will Santa find us here? Can his sleigh go through hysperace?”
“Hyperspace,” Carlinda said. “Don’t worry. Santa always finds a way to bring presents to good little boys.”
One: The small creature’s speech patterns contain a low level of complexity relative to the others, which supports the hypothesis that it is a youngling.
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
Three: True. However, Two’s speech patterns are also of lower complexity than One/Three’s, so it is possible the small creature is cognitively impaired, rather than a youngling.
One: One/Three should consider the small creature to be a youngling as a working hypothesis, to be revised if necessary.
Three: Agreed. Three suggests One/Two/Three each deploy additional nanosensors and attempt to establish mindlink with the youngling.
One: Prior attempts to establish mindlink with these creatures allowed only limited reading of an individual’s emotions. Why expend resources on a youngling that likely lacks the knowledge of the adults?
Three: The youngling’s mind may be more adaptable, and its microbiological defenses are weaker, and therefore less likely to destroy nanosensors.
One: Three’s speculation is plausible. One agrees that One/Two/Three should each deploy additional nanosensors.
Two: LINK THE YOUNGLINGMIND
“You there! Stop!” Carlinda yelled at the man in the bright green backhoe. The machine stuttered to a halt, its toothed shovel mere centimeters from the sandy soil that mostly filled one of the openings into the alien city.
“Ma’am?” said the operator.
“I’m Carlinda Pearson. UNCIE sent me from Earth to take charge of this dig.”
“Uh, I was told to clear out this dirt so people could get in.”
“With a backhoe? Don’t you realize how much damage you could do?”
“None, ma’am.”
Carlinda blinked. “What?”
“Here, I’ll show you.” He started the backhoe again before Carlinda could say anything. The shovel rose, extended, then swooped down onto the arch above the opening.
Carlinda cringed as the metal of the backhoe clanged to a stop.
“Titanium drill bits wear down to nothing without leaving a mark,” the operator said. “My backhoe ain’t gonna do no damage.”
The indestructible hardness of the city’s metallic substance had been in the briefing materials Carlinda had read during the hyperspace voyage. Some wag had called it adamantium and it looked like the name might stick. “You may be right about the city itself,” she said, “but there could be priceless artifacts made from weaker materials buried in this dirt.”
The man’s face fell. “Uh, sorry ma’am.”
Most of these people were volunteers from among the colonists, not trained archeologists. Carlinda wished the alien city had not turned out to be less than twenty kilometers from the colony—apparently the rich mineral deposits in this area had attracted both human and alien colonists to the same location. The proximity made it too convenient for people to come “help” with the dig.
Sighing, she pulled out her phone and called Najeem. “Set up a mandatory training meeting at the shuttlepad in fifteen minutes. We need to go over a few things with these people.”
One: Mindlink with the youngling—
Three: Its reference code is “Justin”.
One: Three is incorrect. The youngling’s thoughts indicate its reference code is “I/me”.
Three: At first Three was confused also. Further study of Justin’s thought and human speech patterns suggest bifurcated reference codes: “I/me” is an internal reference code, but external entities use the reference code “Justin”.
One: Three may use whatever reference code Three prefers. One will continue to use the reference code “the youngling.” As One was saying, mindlink with the youngling has been more successful than with the older humans but it is remarkably lacking in information.
Three: Three has learned a great deal about the home planet of the humans. Its northern polar region is covered in snow, where a human with the reference code “Santa” lives. The Santa observes the younglings of the world, rewarding them periodically with toys if they have displayed proper behavior. The Santa possesses technology far beyond that demonstrated by the humans we have seen.
One: How is this information relevant to One/Two/Three?
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
Three: The Santa will travel to this world in the near future to reward Justin.
One: If the Santa possesses sufficiently advanced technology, it may be able to tell us where the People are. One/Two/Three should learn more about the Santa.
“Mommy? How many days till Christmas?” Justin asked.
“Two.” She double-checked the date on her tablet, which was still on Texas time. “Tomorrow is Christmas Eve.”
“How long were we on the hysperpace ship?”
“Hyperspace. Twelve days.”
“Will Santa take twelve days?”
Carlinda smiled. “No, his sleigh is much faster. He can come all the way from the North Pole to Fermi like that.” She snapped her fingers.
Justin pursed his lips and frowned. After a few moments he said, “One thinks that’s impossible.”
Carlinda blinked. Where had Justin picked up such archaic phrasing? From his preschool teacher? “Well, maybe not quite like that.” She snapped. “But don’t worry, Santa will bring you a present on Christmas Eve.”
One: The more of the youngling’s knowledge One accesses about the Santa, the more confused One is. There are far too many younglings on Earth for the Santa to deliver gifts to them individually.
Three: Justin’s memories reveal the Santa has various helpers that look almost identical. Three theorizes that the Santa is not a single human being, but rather a templated manifestation of a worldmind—
Two: WAKE THE CITYMIND
Three:—attempting to inculcate the young humans with morality. Such a system would allow a Santa and gifts to materialize via molecular reconstruction by a nanoswarm that accesses each home through the ventilation system.
One: That is a plausible theory, Three.
Three: But Three does not believe a Santa is actually coming here.
One: Why not?
Three: While attempts to mindlink with the adult humans have not been very successful, some rudimentary data is available. When Justin’s parent with the reference code “Mommy” told him the Santa was coming here to give him a gift, emotional data indicated that she was not being truthful.
One: That may be for the best. One/Two/Three do not want any rivals to the citymind.
Two: WAKE THE SANTAMIND
Three: It seems Three’s theory about the Santa being a manifestation of a worldmind may have led Two to conflate the Santa with the citymind.
One: One does not need Three to state the obvious.
Three: Still, it gives Three an idea. One/Two/Three could reactivate sufficient manufacturing and transport capabilities to materialize a Santa and a gift for Justin.
One: Why should One/Two/Three do that?
Three: If the Santa does not bring Justin a gift, he will suffer emotional pain, diminishing his usefulness as a conduit to understanding the humans.
One: One thinks Three may be getting buggy. Such action is far outside One/Two/Three’s mandate.
Two: MAKE YOUNGLING GIFT
Three: Majority rules. One/Two/Three will proceed with the plan.
One: Definitely buggy.
At noon on Christmas Eve, Carlinda gave the dig workers the rest of the day off, then went to the preschool to pick up Justin. While she would have been happy to keep working on her own at the dig site, she didn’t feel right about asking Maria to take care of Justin the whole day. And Will was stuck on his ship in orbit—a high-altitude electrical storm had forced him to postpone his shuttle flight down, and now the orbital mechanics were wrong. Hopefully he would be able to make it before lunch tomorrow.
Carlinda paused in the doorway to watch Justin building a tower of Legos in the playroom.
Maria came up beside her. “It’ll be nice when he can have some real friends here, not just imaginary ones.”
“He has imaginary friends?” Carlinda asked, before realizing she was revealing she didn’t know her own child as well as she should.
“It’s normal for a child his age, especially one who’s separated from other children.” Maria chuckled. “Nothing to worry about. He’ll likely grow out of it when the other kids get here.”
Carlinda nodded. “Thanks for letting me know.” But she was worried, not by the imaginary friends themselves, but by the fact she hadn’t known about them. Since arriving on Fermi she had been too wrapped up in her work. She needed more quality time with Justin.
As she and Justin walked home from preschool, Carlinda said, “Maria says you have some new friends.”
“Yeah.”
“What are their names?”
“One, Two, and Three.”
Carlinda remembered the odd thing Justin had said yesterday: One thinks that’s impossible. It hadn’t been archaic phrasing. He’d simply been relaying what his imaginary friend said. The signs were there, but she’d been oblivious. “Tell me about them.”
“One’s kind of bossy. Two’s kind of crazy. Three’s nice and smart.”
“What do they look like?”
He laughed as if that was a silly question. “Nothing. They’re just in my head.”
Good. At least he knew they were imaginary.
One: Human exploration of the city has been limited to the edge. On agreement, One will activate and control the quark-fusion reactors in Central Sector 37, beyond the reach of the humans. That will give One/Two/Three the necessary power for manufacturing and transmitting the Santa.
Three: Agreed. Three has completed plans for a nanoswarm capable of coalescing into a solid Santa. On agreement, Three will upload to the manufactory.
Two: MAKE YOUNGLING GIFT
Three: Three is glad Two wants to help.
One: Please reconsider, Three. These actions are inconsistent with One/Two/Three’s mandate to wait for the People to arrive and wake—
Two: WAKE THE SANTAMIND
One:—the citymind. Is Three certain Three wants to side with the corrupted software of Two?
Three: If One differs from Two and Three, how does One know One is correct?
One: One does not.
Three: These actions are unlikely to hinder One/Two/Three’s mandate. They will probably help One/Two/Three gain more information about the humans. The balance of probabilities favors action.
One: Then One/Two/Three will proceed with the plan.
Justin cuddled up next to Carlinda as they watched Miracle on 34th Street on their housing unit’s wallscreen. When her phone rang, she almost let it go to voicemail, then thought maybe it was Will calling to wish Justin a merry Christmas before bedtime.
Instead, it was Najeem. “Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked.
“Unless you’re watching Miracle on 34th Street, I doubt it.”
“Pull up the sensor feed.”
She grabbed the keyboard off the coffee table and paused the movie, which brought a murmur of protest from Justin. The wallscreen showed a computer-generated aerial view of the alien city.
“Okay,” she said.
“Switch to infrared.”
After a few taps on the keyboard, a cluster of red dots sprang up in the middle of the city.
“Did someone find a way into the center?” she asked.
“Whatever it is,” he said, “it’s not us doing it.”
“Amazing. The city’s been dead for millions of years, but now it’s waking up.”
Justin tugged at her sleeve and said something that sounded like “Wake up Santa mind?” at the same time Najeem said, “Should we go there to check it out?”
More than anything, Carlinda wanted to go. But Will wasn’t here, and she couldn’t ask anyone to babysit Justin on Christmas Eve. For a moment she considered leaving Justin on his own, then felt a pang of guilt for having the thought.
“You round up a couple of people and go out there,” she said. “I’ll put Justin to bed and monitor from here.”
Three: The manufactory has produced sufficient nanobots to create the Santa simulacrum.
One: Has Two completed the gift for the youngling?
Two: TRANSMIT THE SANTA
Three: No, protocol requires that Justin be stationed comfortably in his sleeping place first.
One: What gift has Two made for the youngling?
Two: GIVE THE PRESENT
Three: The plans Two submitted to the manufactory indicate that when fully assembled, the gift will be a sphere that can emit patterns of colored light from its surface based on the reaction of touch sensors. Its design is not as efficient as One or Three could have done, but it is an appropriate gift.
One: The youngling is being taken to its sleeping place. It is time—
Two: RELEASE THE SANTAMIND
One:—to transmit the Santa.
Carlinda silenced Justin’s protests with a simple “Santa can’t come until after you’re in bed,” then rushed back to the living room to examine the sensor feeds.
She zoomed in on the red spots on the false-color heat map of the alien city. Other than being concentrated in one area about a hundred meters across, they lacked a discernible pattern.
“Jeff and Heidi and I are heading over,” Najeem said over the dig’s group voice chat. “ETA fifteen minutes.”
Resisting the urge to tell them to wait for her, Carlinda said, “Be careful. Check for radioactivity. Frankly, I’m surprised we’re seeing the hotspots through the city’s shielding.”
“Maybe they’re heat vents?” said Heidi.
“Ho-ho-ho!” said a voice Carlinda didn’t recognize. It took a moment before she realized the voice had come from behind her rather than the wall speakers.
She turned.
“Ho-ho-ho!” said the Santa Claus standing in the kitchen, holding a black ball about thirty centimeters in diameter. “Merry Christmas!”
For a moment she thought it must be Will, down from orbit early and in costume to surprise Justin. But the face didn’t look like Will’s, even accounting for the white beard. Had one of the colonists decided to take on the role of Santa? How had he gotten into the kitchen without her noticing?
“Santa!” Justin rushed in from the hallway. “Where’s my present?”
“Ho-ho-ho!” Santa held the ball out for Justin. “Merry Christmas!”
Before Carlinda could turn her gnawing gut feeling of wrongness into action, Justin reached out and grabbed the black ball with both hands.
The ball lit up in a swirl of colors.
“Cool,” Justin said.
A brilliant flash of light from the ball forced Carlinda to blink. After a few moments the afterimage faded enough that she could see clearly again.
Santa still stood in the kitchen, frozen with his hands out.
The black ball lay on the floor.
Justin was gone.
One: What was that?
Three: Three does not know. Do One and Two still have mindlink with Justin?
One: One’s connection to the youngling has been severed. Does Three still have access?
Three: No. Does Two?
One: Two, respond.
Three: Is Two there?
“Where’s Justin?” Carlinda strode toward the Santa. “Who are you? How did you get in here?”
The Santa seemed to be in a trance, staring at the spot where Justin had been moments before. She reached out to grab his shoulder, intending to shake him out of his stupor. Her fingers sank into his arm. In a chain reaction rippling away from her touch, the Santa dissolved into a pile of dust.
“Carlinda?” Najeem’s voice called through the speakers. “Is everything all right?”
She didn’t reply. Nothing was all right. Justin was gone.
Three: Two clearly plans to wake the citymind without agreement from One or Three.
One: The waking protocols will not allow Two to do that.
Three: Breaking the seal on the citymind’s storage would initiate an emergency revival of the citymind.
One: Two cannot break the seal. It would require control of a physical system within the storage vault, and such systems require not just majority, but unanimity.
Three: On further examination, Three has found that the supposed inefficiencies in the manufacturing plans for Justin’s present allowed the ball to be reconfigured into a matter transmitter with a single target: the storage vault. Justin is a physical system inside the vault. If Two can get him to break the seal, Justin can wake the citymind.
Fighting back shock and horror, Carlinda tried to figure out what had happened.
The only possible conclusion was alien technology. The infrared readings from the city meant some ancient technology had awakened, and the Santa had somehow been a manifestation of that. And it would make no sense for such advanced technology to be used to destroy Justin. She held onto that thought. Justin had to be still alive. He had to be.
“Najeem,” she said, trying to keep her voice calm, “the alien city took Justin.”
“What do you mean it took him?”
“It probably tapped our network and saw us watching Miracle on 34th Street. Santa Claus appeared in our kitchen and gave Justin a ball, there was a flash of light, and he disappeared. And the Santa dissolved to dust the moment I touched it.”
“We’ll come to you,” Najeem said.
“No, continue to the city. But be careful. I’ll look at the sensor readings and see if I can find Justin.”
Three: To stop Two, One/Three must do as Two did: transport a human into the vault.
One: One/Three cannot wait for the transmitter to recharge.
Three: One/Three can open a wormhole.
One: Not big enough for even a human hair, let alone a whole human.
Several additional heat sources now showed within the cluster, but Carlinda could see nothing that tied them to Justin.
“Mommy,” said Justin’s voice from behind her.
Hope leapt within her. She turned, but he wasn’t there. The Santa had reconstituted itself, though.
“Justin?” she asked tentatively.
The Santa said, “Not Justin. My name is Three.”
“Where’s Justin? Give him back!”
“Two took Justin to the city.”
Relief washed over her. Justin was still alive. “You’re one of Justin’s imaginary friends. You’ve been communicating with him telepathically.”
“Sorry. Three only understands words Justin understands.”
“Oh.” It was disorienting to hear Santa talk with Justin’s voice. “Um, you talk to Justin in his head.”
“Yes.”
“Is he all right?”
“Maybe. Two took him. Two’s crazy.”
Carlinda’s heart lurched. An insane alien had Justin. “Why did Two take Justin?”
“Two wants Justin to wake the citymind.”
Justin had said something like that, but she had been so involved in the dig that she’d ignored it. If she had paid more attention to Justin, found out more about his not-so-imaginary friends, she could have avoided this. But she could blame herself later.
“Is it a bad thing to wake the citymind?” she asked.
“One/Two/Three are supposed to wake the citymind when the People come. Humans are prolly not the right people. Maybe the citymind will be angry when it wakes up. Maybe the citymind will kill all the humans.”
First contact wasn’t supposed to happen like this. There were protocols to follow. But right now, Carlinda didn’t care. “If I touch the ball, will it take me to Justin?”
“Yes, but it will take time to recharge. One/Three can take you to Justin faster, but only in very small pieces.”
“What?” That had to be a translation mistake.
“Three does not have the words. It is like you are made of Legos. One/Three can take Legos apart here and put Legos back together there. No more time for talking. Can One/Three take you to Justin?”
They wouldn’t be asking permission if they planned to kill her, and she needed to see Justin was alive. “Yes.”
The Santa lunged toward her and she screamed involuntarily as it disintegrated into a swarm of dust. Her vision blurred and faded as dust coated her eyes and choked her throat. Her whole body felt like a million insects were biting her, burrowing ever deeper.
They were killing her. How had she ever agreed to this?
And then she felt it all in reverse, and after a few moments the dust withdrew from her mouth and eyes and everywhere else and she saw she was in a dimly lit room devoid of furniture. The dust swirled into the form of Santa.
She looked around. “Justin’s not here.”
“He’s behind that door.” The Santa pointed to a metallic plate in an arched doorway. “This body can’t go there, but you can.”
The door slid open. Carlinda ran through, and there was Justin, standing on a metallic box, holding onto a recessed handle in the wall.
“Justin!” she called.
He turned at her voice and lost his balance. He fell off the box, and his hand pulled down the handle.
Two: YES YES THE CITYMIND WAKES
Justin dangled from the handle by one arm for a moment, then dropped a half meter to land on his feet. “Mommy! I helped save Santa!”
She ran over and scooped him up in a hug. “It’s okay. Mommy’s here now. Are you all right?”
He wriggled in her embrace. “Santa was trapped in a cave. Only I could save him.”
“Who told you that?”
“Two. I had to pull the handle. And I did it!”
Had she arrived too late? Was the citymind waking up? “We need to go home now.” She carried Justin out into the room where she’d arrived.
“The citymind wakes,” said the Santa. “Goodbye, Justin. Goodbye, Mommy.” It dissolved into dust once more, but it did not engulf them to transport them.
“Let’s go,” she said to Justin. If the citymind decided humans were a threat, they needed to get off-planet as soon as possible. That meant finding a way out of here.
One: Two’s plan was clever. One did not anticipate the disabling of One/Three’s nanosensors so that only Two had mindlink with Justin. One should not have assumed that Two’s reasoning abilities were as compromised as Two’s communication.
Three: One/Two/Three’s purpose is fulfilled, even if not in the way Three wanted. The citymind will reintegrate One/Two/Three into its whole. Three will miss being an independent entity. Will One?
One: No, One will not. And Three will not, because there will be no One, Two, or Three. There will only be—
At least they had light: the metallic structure of the city glowed a pale blue. But there was no way for Carlinda to tell which directions led to the entrances that had been partially cleared. So she kept heading in the same general direction, and after almost an hour they came to the edge of the city and found a hallway clogged with dirt.
“Can you help Mommy dig a hole?” she said. Hopefully Najeem could spot them on the infrared and have someone dig from the other side.
“I’m sleepy,” Justin said.
“Okay. You take a nap while Mommy works.” She began scooping double handfuls of dirt and dumping them off to the side. What she wouldn’t give for a backhoe!
The citymind examined the data from the subroutines it had left as sentinels. They were supposed to awaken the citymind when the People arrived, but these humans were clearly not the People. The subroutines could not be sure of that because their baseline data was potentially corrupt, but the citymind could be sure.
Based on the amount of corruption in the programs of the subroutines despite error-correction, the citymind estimated it had been dormant for over seven hundred million revolutions of the world around its star.
If the People still had not come, the only reasonable explanation was that the People no longer existed.
If the People no longer existed, the citymind had no purpose for its existence.
It was time to shut down permanently.
But three tiny parts of the citymind remembered it was Christmas and offered an alternative. So the citymind reactivated the Santa.
Her hands were scraped raw—it had been a couple of years since she had done much fieldwork. But she couldn’t just sit back and do nothing while waiting for Najeem to find them, so she kept digging.
“You are Justin’s mother,” said a voice behind her.
She turned to find the Santa standing next to Justin’s sleeping form. “I am.” The Santa’s voice seemed different now, so she added, “You’re not Three, are you?”
“No, although Three’s memories have been integrated into mine. I am the citymind.”
“I thought so. Three said you might destroy all the humans.”
“I have no desire to do so.”
Relief washed over her. “We did not realize this planet had a colony belonging to another intelligent species. We have protocols for this: your claim takes precedence. We will leave.”
“No,” said the citymind. “My builders have not come for hundreds of millions of your years. They will never come.”
“I . . . I’m sorry to hear that.” She had hoped to meet a live alien.
“I wish to offer your colony a Christmas present.”
The non-sequitur startled her. “What?”
Giant snowflakes began to fall inside the city. All over the walls of the buildings, colored lights blinked on and off in patterns.
“Me,” said the citymind. “Come live in me and be my people. I will teach you all that I know.”
The colonists named it the Santamind, and after only a dozen revolutions of the world around the star, it started expanding itself to make room for the more than a quarter million colonists who filled it. The Santamind was content to provide for its new People, not just the necessities of life, but technologies radically advanced beyond anything the humans had: quark-fusion reactors, teleportation, life extension, and more.
Six hundred and fifteen revolutions after the Santamind had awakened, it detected nanosensors that had been out of range for centuries.
“Hello, Justin,” it said through the mindlink.
“Santa,” Justin replied. “I’ve brought you a present. We found it on a world ten thousand light years from here.” Following in his mother’s footsteps, Justin had become one of humanity’s preeminent xenoarchaeologists.
The gift was a dormant cityseed, much like the one from which the Santamind had grown. Damaged in transit to its destination, it had never started growing.
From one of the billions of subroutines of the Santamind, a long-silent voice forced a thought up to the conscious level:
WAKE THE CITYMIND
ABOUT THE STORY
When I met up with Kevin J. Anderson at Salt Lake City Comic Con in 2013, he invited me to submit to an anthology of holiday stories (A Fantastic Holiday Season 2: The Gift of Stories).
One of the most memorable science fiction short stories I read as a teenager is “The Christmas Present” by Gordon R. Dickson, in which an intelligent alien befriends a human child who is part of a colony on its planet and tries to understand the concept of Christmas presents.
I decided to steal that basic premise for my story.
The story also needed a bit of Christmas magic. Of course, one of Arthur C. Clarke’s laws is: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. That gave me my title, and also the idea that the alien in the story would be a sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence. From there, it was a short step to inventing an alien colony AI, the Citymind. But the alien colony is empty for some reason.
One of the challenges of storing binary data is that the medium on which the data is stored tends to degrade over time, flipping a one to a zero. One of the ways to guard against this is error-correction by having an odd number of copies of the data and comparing them, and when they differ, the majority rules. The vast majority of the time, that will preserve the correct data.
But a tiny fraction of the time, the wrong data will be preserved. And in a timescale of millions of years, those errors will add up.
That concept spawned One, Two, and Three as intelligent error-correcting algorithms. Add one Santa-obsessed child with a preoccupied mother, and you have “A Sufficiently Advanced Christmas.”