Excerpt from my novel Scry Tharg

Chapter nine ...
As Krit Thelm began his quest to destroy Scry Tharg, the swordsman began his search for this year's Christmas family.For hundreds of years he'd returned to Earth at Yuletide searching for a special family to observe for the season. All the way back to the old planet he'd fill up Lapstrake's sound systems with ancient Terran Christmas music, all the old stuff,even Elvis Presley and Blue Christmas. His favorites were Gabriel's Message,the Coventry Carol,In the Bleak Midwinter,It came upon a Midnight Clear, Do You See What I See and a few others. Earth, of course, was no longer what it used to be. There were no industries left there of any kind, unless one considered the operation of retirement homes and certain tourist facilities as an industry .Earth had long ago given up its last renewable resource, a uranium deposit on the cold Labrador coast near Nain.The planet had been renewed ecologically to a great degree, even some species of fish came back and all the fresh water sources were renewed and purified of any contaminants.The population was only a couple of million now. Mostly seniors living out the remains of their lives in the quiet, tranquility of a planet that had once or twice destroyed itself in war. A few tourism agencies offered air travel tours around the contintential coastlines. You could still land in Lisbon and have a glass of wine in a small cafe outside the Belem Tower. You could still sit in the trenches of Beaumont Hamel and regret the youth of the world who had died there in July,
1916.You could still find a few nuns giving tours through the ruins of the Vatican. In Washington the White House remained standing, restored many times over. You could let yourself in with an electronic EGO card and tour the old building by yourself if you were so inclined and weren't afraid of ghosts. Around the globe there were still some families who raised children the old fashioned way, with a Mom, Dad and a few boys and girls or so. There was even a church or two around, in small communities in a few parts of Europe and North America, even in Iceland. There were still remnants of almost every race, colour, creed spread throughout the globe. Tharg kept a record of each and every family on board Lapstrake, the ages of each member, occupation of the parents,addresses, attitudes on social issues, such as they were, religion if there was any,and Statement Of Existence which every Earthling had to make after age sixteen.This year he had found a small family in upstate New York,near where Lake Placid used to be.The father was a ski instructor with a small tourism outfit that had rights to the runs on Whiteface Mountain.The Belanger family ,Merrill,his wife Anita, two sons,Charles and Philip and one daughter Lisa. Anita was a fully qualified teacher with a Masters Degree in Chemistry. Mr.Belanger had a degree in Philosophy with a Minor in Theologies. The boys, twins, were eleven and the girl, was seven. Mr.Belanger’s Statement of Existence,his S.O.E. included his opinion that an Earth which could produce a poet who could write :
"have you"the mountain,while his maples wept air to blood, asked"something a little child who's just as small as me can do or be?" god whispered him a snowflake: you may sleep now, my mountain"and this mountain slept
while his pines lifted their green lives and smiled
was worth trying to save, and be near. He had also stated, to the great puzzlement of some, that ... "As far as guitars go, the major chords tell the story and the minor chords tear out your heart. I love the minor chords.
Tharg's favourite poet was E .E. Cummings and he’d recognized the verse from (fire stop thief help murder save the world" in Cumming's still famous little tome 1x1. Tharg had done his thesis on Cummings for his Phd. in English Literature. Tharg knew every one of his poems off by memory. And he too loved the guitar, six and twelve string and he understood perfectly what Belanger had meant. Tharg wanted to see this fellow and his family. His wife's S.O.E. contained only two words: Earth is!
On December 23rd. Tharg put Lapstrake in orbit. He took a Quisar launch because it could hold a lot of small cargo and flew down to Mirror Lake, a few miles from the log cabin Merrill Belanger and his wife had built about twelve years ago. It was late at night. One of the pieces of equipment was a Novan Snow Jet that had a small invultuate engine,completely soundless.He got in and sped away towards the cabin. He could easily have studied intimate details of the Belangers on board Lapstrake using sohisticated observation equipment he employed sometimes tracking targets.He preferred at Christmas time,however,to do what he could, in person. He found the house on a small knoll in a little wood. He pulled in behind a few large pine trees and shut down his sled. He donned a Uni-ocular helmet with sound enhancement and scanned the area, finally focusing on the living room of the tiny lodge. A fire was burning in an old Vermont Casting's Stove .Small birch logs burned with a cheery attitude casting fireball reflections on the shiny Christmas Tree ornaments, giving the tree a life of its own, an involvement in the Christmas preparations. Mr. Belanger was hooking up a set of miniature lights on the tree. One boy,Philip was passing him things. The little girl Elisa was over in the corner arm chair winding up a tiny ceramic Christmas Tree that played Jingle Bells. The other boy,Charles was helping his mother in the kitchen making what looked like an old fashioned fruit cake. They were smiling and joking about this or that, observing, commenting, poking fun. A family.Tharg's eyes filled up.0h Lord, they're so beautiful.So happy. "Suddenly the little girl got up and went over to her daddy. "Don't forget papa.Tomorrow night we have to make a cake and leave it for Santa Claus. Her face held the brightest,reddest cheeks Tharg had ever seen ,even in his old Christmas cards, which he had saved by the thousands,and still had, thanks to the age neutralizer an old soldier had given him once. "Booty I don't need Tharg. Take it!" Tharg had taken it and added it to the immense mountain of junk he had on Lapstrake on Deck Four, the Junkyard. "Don't worry sunny brightspot. We won't forget Santa and we won't forget Baby Jesus will we little one?" The little girl suddenly became seriously reverent. "Oh no Papa.I’d never forget Baby Jesus. Can you sing the Friendly Beasts for us now?" The father smiled down at her, picked her up and hugged her. "You bet angel." Philip walked over to the big easy chair in the corner and reached behind to get the twelve string. He put it carefully in Mr. Belanger's hands.He tuned up a string or two and then sat down on a hard wooden stool by the piano and began to play the old tune. Then he began to sing and the children and his wife joined in..."Jesus our brother, kind and good, was humbly born in a stable rude, and the friendly beasts around Him stood, Jesus our Brother, kind and good." The song went on and on. Thargs eyes were wet. He’d always like the last verse the best, "Thus every beast by some good spell, in the stable room was glad to tell, of the gift he gave Emmanuel, the gift he gave Emmanuel.'' When he finished Mr.Belanger said to his wife,"Hey hon,let's bake that cake for Old Saint Nick right now and perhaps a little pudding for Baby Jesus too." They all shouted and cheered and went into the kitchen. Tharg put away his glasses and wiped his eyes. There was a full moon, lighting the night snow. The smell of the fire from the log cabin filled him with a nostalgic joy he always felt at this time of the year when he went to steal Christmas from some family. If held had a family of his own he’d build a little cabin like this for them too. But a long, long time ago he had stopped marrying and having families because it was just too hard saying goodbye time after time. Worse was watching little infants, childhoods, youths vanish before his eyes in the brief passage of their lives. Tomorrow night,Christmas Eve he’d come back once more, to see what he could see.
He got back into the sled and powered off. He sped through the night over the snow-covered landscape for hours, under old pine trees ,down frozen river banks, by the relics of old farmsteads that had held stone farmhouses. He stopped by one great chimney still standing by itself in a field and took a photgraph of himself by the chimney with the Moon overhead. He was wearing a pair of old blue denim jeans,a red and black flannel shirt and an old soft leather Bomber jacket, of the kind worn by pilots in the early days of aviation His head was bare,but he had on thin leather gloves.Cold didn't affect him much except to make him miss the old days a little more. After a while he gathered some old pine branches and some kindling, and built a little fire at the base of the chimney.The smoke rose in the windless night straight up the chimney and out to the Moon. The old spaceman stayed there until daylight took the Moon home.He went back to Lapstrake but not before he’d carved his initials into the bark of a big old pine. ST-1999. He always used that date when doing something nostalgic on Earth. He ate and then, slept. He had to rest up for tonight, after all it was Christmas Eve!
The Belanger family had an old-fashioned sing-along until about 11;30 PM. They'd been drinking hot cider and chocolate all evening. Some presents were already placed under the tree and the watchful eye of the beautiful angel with her silver wand all lit up by miniature lights. Tharg watched from his distance in the grove of pines. He watched as the father finally opened the front door and the little girl with the golden hair and red cheeks placed the tins containing the fruit cake for Santa and the pudding for Baby Jesus on the step. Just before her dad closed the door she looked up into the night sky, eyes on fire with wonder and curiosity. Then she kissed her palm and threw the kiss up, up, up into the sky to welcome the magic visitors who were to come.Tharg looked on, seeing the holy and magic event. Then the door closed and night tucked in the little family. The Family.Finally all the lights in the house were out and there was just a glow from the embers burning in the iron stove.Tharg crept over on the path to the house and took the two tins. In their place he put a Carettian Asca Globe. It looked like a small ball of glass, but inside there were two tiny dancing creatures that resembled the beautiful Carettian Ascas themselves.It was an optical illusion thanks to a highly skilled artisan on Carett. Tharg knew the crystal couldn't be broken. The two crimson creatures never stopped their eternal dance as long as one held the little globe in the hand. The tiny gift was held inside a square little crate of pine Tharg had whittled last night. He'd engraved Merry Christmas Belangers in the wood. He leaned forward and kissed the front door of the log cabin and whispered the words himself.
Tharg never ever stayed after midnight, Christmas Eve. Lapstrake catapulted into skipjack almost as soon as he closed the landing bay doors. Below Mr.Belanger rolled over in his sleep, his mind telling him there was no such thing as thunder in the winter.
Tharg sat in control, munching on homemade fruit cake, listening to The Friendly Beasts as sung by the Belanger family pouring out of his onboard speakers.
"Jesus my brother,kind and good ...