Midnight Snow, Midnight Glow
A little Christmas story that will please some and horrify others. Please know it was written as entertainment, not to infringe on the right of any holder of Space: 1999 and its characters.
On Earth it would have been Christmas Eve.
She was not certain, at first, what it was that awakened her. Helena had been dead-tired when she and John retired for the night. The greenhouse was working overtime because a snowstorm, one their complex instruments thankfully predicted, had been particularly bad. If they did not keep their vegetables and fruits warm, comfortable, and thriving they - all three hundred and thirty-eight of the Alphans - would suffer through a very lean Winter and early Spring.
The adults could manage through the hardship but the children – their all-important replacements - needed stability and full bellies. They were their last hope of bringing Earth people, those who had lived on the moon for so long, beyond their galaxy, living content and productive lives. Interestingly, the children leaned to the female side, with twenty-one girls and ten boys among them.
It had been a hard life on their new world. Six months out of the year they were faced with what might be called, back on their old world, a "good Chicago winter". The other six months consisted of rain, wind, and an occasional bit of good weather. When there was a Sunshine Day the children were allowed to run wild outside. Their parents warmed themselves, lounging lazily on blankets and reclining chairs, getting very little work done. It was a holiday, like Christmas, Kwanza, and New Year's Day all rolled into one and the Alphans took full advantage of the warmth, even eating their meals outside.
Every one of them knew the risk when deciding to colonize this new world. Yet, they were all willing. They had been on the moon far too long. Sooner or later something would have to give and many of the women felt they were not getting any younger. If they were going to have children, families, and build a future for their people they needed to do it straightaway.
The exodus happened nearly six years ago, and the change was good, despite the cold, misery, and the mystery of their new home.
Helena looked over at John in the semi dark who was sleeping soundly. She smiled gently and lifted two fingers to softly stroke his beard. He started to grow it out last year and Helena told him she did not mind as long as he allowed her to keep it trimmed. It was dark with gentle streaks of grey and she thought it suited him. She wondered if, in a few years, he could play Father Christmas for the children.
She was about to turn over, knowing she had an early call in the nursery in the morning. But then had an inexplicable desire to look out of their little home's bedroom window. Theirs was a small but comfortable abode, heated and well-lit during the day and, at night, cozy and warm. A honeymoon cottage she told John shortly after they wed.
Their marriage happened, along with a few other couples, after the last Eagle landed. It was symbolic gesture more than anything else. If their Commander and CMO were willing to show they believed in this new life, were willing to commit to it and each other, then others should also feel comfortable with their pristine if very wintry new home. And it did help thy had fallen deeply in love.
"Helena."
She heard a strange voice, almost as if it were in the room with she and John. She looked at her spouse but he did not, as yet, stir.
Helena slipped from the bed, into her slippers, and pulled a shawl over her slender shoulders. Carefully, she made her way to the window and looked out. Their two half-moons which reflected light against the white of the snow, brightened the area considerably.
Still, she missed their original moon – which was now thousands if not millions of light-years away. Helena briefly wondered if the moonbase was still functioning. Their Commander arranged for it but, as they all well knew, anything could happen in deep space.
Helena's eyes, looking nearly despondently out of the window, could just make it out off in the distance. It was a green glow. It shimmered through the bare trees, near the Angel mountains, an area dedicated to technician Tamara Angel, who disappeared into those mountains days after they landed on their new world. The search parties looked long and hard for her and the Alphans could only assume she died from over-exposure. Yet, her body was never found. No one knew why Angel decided to hike up there, including her concerned and grieving fiancé.
Did she see green? The thought struck Helena and she blinked. She could not stop looking at it. The glow seemed to glow stronger, possibly sensing her reservation. Every fiber of Helena's being told her to call for John, to let him know something extraordinary was happening, but she could not. It would not let her. She lifted a hand and touched the pane, drawing a line down the partly foggy surface, the warmth inside coupled with the cold outside causing inevitable condensation.
"Come." The light called to her. "It is time. Come, Helena, and fulfill your destiny."
A woman of great will-power, Helena did not immediately comply, but soon she saw other women leaving their homes, staring at the glow as she had, walking to it. Wanting what it inexplicably offered. They were all wearing their night dresses, robes, and a few were not wearing slippers as they stepped into the cold and snow.
Yet, it seemed not to matter. Like Helena, they were being called upon and had to obey. Soon, even Helena found herself walking to her snug home's door, without a will of her own.
Still, she glanced at him and whispered, "John ..." sadly.
"Helena?" He reached over for her but found the space beside him empty. Only the warmth of where she once lay resonated. John sat up in bed, adjusting his eyes to the dark and hearing the wind.
He saw her shadow pass by the window, on its way to the front door.
"Helena, what are you doing?" He called, groggy and beleaguered.
He watched as she opened the door, swirls of snow lapping at her legs and inadequately covered feet, and -without replying - stepped outside. She unceremoniously closed the door behind her.
John quickly got out of bed, both concerned and frightened. Where the hell was she going? He moved to the door and grabbed the handle but could not open it. John struggled with the knob, attempted to pull the door away by sheer force, but it did not budge. As a matter of fact, he began to feel a sensation of burning as his grip tightened on the doorknob! In pain, he had to abandon it.
Unnerved, Koenig then moved to the window and peered outside. He saw Helena moving away from the house, slowly but with purpose, and other Alphan women doing the same, abandoning their own homes, unhurriedly walking in the direction of a green glow through the forest. He saw Sandra, Tanya, Pam, Suzanne, Angela … and others in the distance.
John Koenig's breath was rapid as he grasped the meaning. He could see it in his mind's-eye. Something was showing him a mystery from the past.
Just before she came up missing, Angel had called to them on her comlock, telling the Alphans about a green glow. At the time they thought she was delirious, suffering from hyperthermia and dying. But they should have known, when they could not find her, that there was more to this world than what met the eye.
Like Angel, their women were never going to return. They had a function elsewhere. This world that they had called their own for the last half dozen years, had possibly occupied without permission, decided it was time for the interlopers to pay a penalty. It wanted their woman!
"Helena!" Koenig shouted. He grasped a candle holder, an implement hand-made by unpracticed but keen Alphan artisans, and attempted to break the glass of the window before him. It would not be breached. He struck the window several times with no success. Desperate, John then pounded on the window with his fists, "Helena, come back!" he cried, seeing her form fade off into the dark.
He could see the homes closest to him. Paul, Alan, and even Kano were doing the same. He could see them, through their windows, shouting, attempting to get their loved one to return. John could see their children, little boys and girls, smacking their hands against the windows too.
But they were not coming back. They would never come back.
As Angel had never returned to them. Was she their first subject? Kidnapped for what purpose they may never know … All of their women doomed to either death or to fulfill the whim of this planet's true rulers …
"No!" Koenig cried, "Bring them back!"
The Alphan men searched for their women for months, walking the mountains and fields during even the worst of storms. Koenig led many of the missions, determined to find their missing women. The men argued, grieved, and a few died from exposure and loneliness.
John Koenig was nearly a victim of both but was brought back to their community, nursed back to health, and a new sort of calm came to him. He was never willing to give up entirely, wanting to be reunited with his beloved Helena, but he also felt a form of enlightenment as well.
He did exclaim: "It will never happen again."
Carter asked, "How can you be sure, John?"
He and the others did not understand it but there was a purpose to the sacrifice. Or perhaps he simply had to believe, to somehow prove, that the settling on this world was not a mistake.
John simply said, "I promise it will not happen again."
The Alphans had to continue to live, to thrive, and learn from what the planet, in all its ambiguity, hurled at them. They would survive! They had to for their children – for the future!
Ten years later, on an oddly warm Christmas Eve day, John Koenig looked out into the woods. "Yes?" he asked, having heard something.
It was during a Sunshine Day. The children were romping, the young adults were talking and romancing, their fathers were lounging. All seemed well.
He stood from the blanket he was sitting on, slipped a cloak on and started to hike, with his tall walking stick, into the field that led to the forest. Alan called to him, asking him where he was going, but their Commander never responded.
He never returned.
Twenty years later, On Christmas Eve, the green glow returned, attempting to take the adult female children away as they had their mothers so many years before, leaving more young children and grieving men without their female parents and partners.
Yet, the women would go only so far this time. They stopped and returned to their homes. They could not explain why it was they had done what they did but more than a few told their husbands and the men they knew as their fathers and grandfathers that there was a couple.
A man and a woman who urged them to return.
"It was as if we were dreaming." Monica Kano, explained. "They were standing together, their hands raised, and told us to go home."
Janet Morrow added, "The urge to turn about was almost as acute as the need to go into the light."
In essence, the "spirits" implored them to go back to their people, used inexplicable powers to make them do so, and told the women to never venture out into the green glow again.
Alphan men like Alan Carter, Paul Morrow, and Dr. Bob Mathias - those who had loved and lost - knew who it was that saved their daughters. In twenty more years, they knew, John Koenig and his cherished Helena would be there again to stop heart-break and keep their Alphan family together.
The Commander kept his promise.
Merry Christmas.
THE END
December 2017.