A happy tale for the Christmas season, holiday greetings to you all!, and finally, an SFnal explanation of where that Jolly Old Elf really came from.
At best, he was a pirate, a privateer, a free trader. A head of curly chestnut hair, a big male humanoid body, a laugh that would warm the depths of even a machine heart, and a mind so devious that it charmed an ancient Customs Officer, namely me.
I’m Angie, Assistant Customs Officer stationed at Transect 201, a portal managed by the Galactic Alliance of Worlds Customs Authority (GAWCA). No great planets in my portfolio, just lots of backwoods ones. Transect 201 was supposed to be where I could finally get a promotion, but nothing of genuine interest happened for a thousand years. Until him. He was unique, though I didn’t know it then. Very few individuals make that much of a dent in an entire planet’s history.
On that fateful day, I checked the bulletins for incoming criminals. One from Transect 199-09, a minor planet, complained about a massive toy theft. Their bulletin was graphic; some joker had stolen all the toys destined for a big toy sale, and their merchants were screaming.
The items disappeared from their main warehouse. The theory was that someone had rigged a Folded-Space Moving Machine so that when the manufacturer put fully finished toys into the warehouse, within a day, they would disappear to another warehouse, then another around their planet. By the time the owner had finished inventory, there were massive tons of toys just ‘gone’ without a trace.
Then my Customs Portal Hangar readings flagged a Folded-Space within a tiny Hold, so I stopped a rather old Jump Ship and ordered the Captain into my office.
“State your name and cargo, please.” At nine feet tall, I loomed over the robust humanoid Captain before me.
“Nick, beautiful,” he said with a jolly smile, “Anywhere fun on the Transect? Let’s get a brandy and see where it goes?” He leaned towards me.
“It’s strictly coffee and tea service here, sir,” I replied.
“But someone of your beauty…” He leaned in to read the name on my uniform. “Inspector Angie, we could have fun…”
Not many smugglers try to flatter me. I’m average for my race; the GAWCA call us Angelesque Humanoids. I have long sweeping limbs and wings covered in golden skin, and sharp teeth. Humans find us awe-inspiring or terrifying, but not sexy. Normally, just entering my office space cowed them. This one had nerve.
“Do you have some contraband?” I pinged to deep-analyze his hold.
“No, no, just toys for a friend’s family, back on Azurite,” he said grinning widely.
“Yet, your aura tells me otherwise. Also, your pulse is elevated, and you are sweating.”
“Sure, a few toys; maybe I didn’t pay for them,” he admitted. So, he wasn’t a hardened criminal.
My scan confirmed my fears. I marched Nick back to his Ship and opened the Hold, fired up my IceGizmo4100, and hit “Freeze.”
Plinko – there it was. The toy haul from 199-09, frozen and slowly twirling in mid-air in our Portal Hangar.
“Guilty,” I said.
“Guess my kill switch failed,” He blinked his very blue eyes.
With the powers invested in me by the GAWCA, I am permitted to deliver swift justice. So, I did, thinking of the merchants of 199. As I arranged to send the toys back, I also arranged to move him to his prison world, chosen randomly from a list of pre-spacefaring candidates.
“Your sentence, Mr. Nick, is to do penance in the frozen North of an unfriendly, savage world called Earth.”
Again, maddeningly, he grinned, jolly as could be.
“You know, Angie, the stealing life’s pretty hard. I’ve always been taught to make the best of life.”
“As an internee, you are forbidden to change their history. Do not introduce GA high tech to these savages.”
“I’m but a humble trader.” He bowed. One of my assistants removed all high tech equipment from his person and his ship that wasn’t strictly necessary for the trip.
“Now ALSO endeavor to be the best person you can be. No stealing. Then you might get parole. We will be back in a sufficiency of time.”
“How long?”
“A hundred or so of their years.”
“NO-o-o!” was the last I heard from Nick until we returned to parole him several thousand years later.
He’d been busy, starting with Laplanders and their reindeer. He did a stint as the traveling St. Nicholas, escaping our Northern prison unaccountably quickly. Over time, he whispered a new idea to several easily-led authors who re-branded him as a jolly elf. Then, he started a toy procurement and gift delivery program as the “Santa Claus.”
We met in his factory village, outside a chalet he lived in.
“So,” I asked him, “I see your anti-aging meds are off.” He sported white beard, hair, and jolly round middle.
“I don’t mind!” He smiled. “See my secret North Pole workshop!”
“How did you manage to get a whole village of Elven Folk from planet Hollyberry?” I asked, perusing my notes to the sound of sleighbells.
Yes, he’d smuggled the Elven Folk in using one of his Folded-Space gadgets, which we’d missed when stranding him.
“Not my fault if you folks overlooked a gadget or two. The Elves are very happy to produce toys for the children of Earth!” He beamed. “Look at how much happiness we spread!”
No one knows where his raw material comes from. Is he still using the Folded Space tech to steal?
At first, I wanted to re-maroon him as a thief; however, the more I investigated, the less certain I was. He was adding to the happiness quotient of the planet.
Yes, he fooled us, but he created a positive and innovative mythology that had real benefits. However, my colleagues felt that he still might be stealing. But from who? We couldn’t find out.
And, despite my misgivings, I feel like many worlds could use more merriment. So, in the end, we left him there as an experiment to revisit in another hundred years.
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END
