Release date: December 9, 2017
Subgenre: Holidays short story, Space colonisation
Subgenre: Holidays short story, Space colonisation
About Christmas on Iago Prime:
Eight-year-old Libby has come with her parents to spend a year at the
newly established colony on the planet Iago Prime. Libby's parents
believe that this is a great opportunity for all of them, but Libby is
unhappy on Iago Prime. There are no other children on Iago Prime and
Libby can't go anywhere, because she doesn't even have a space suit.
Worst of all, they will spend Christmas on Iago Prime, where there
aren't even any Christmas trees.
However, Libby's parents, with a little help from Santa Claus himself, conspire to give Libby an unforgettable Christmas on Iago Prime.
This is a science fictional Christmas story of 6700 words or approx. 22 print pages.
However, Libby's parents, with a little help from Santa Claus himself, conspire to give Libby an unforgettable Christmas on Iago Prime.
This is a science fictional Christmas story of 6700 words or approx. 22 print pages.
Excerpt:
Outer space was boring.
Libby would’ve never thought that she’d ever say those words,
especially since all the vid dramas always made a trip to outer space
look so very exciting.
But vid dramas, so Mom and Dad always said, weren’t the truth. And
the truth was that outer space was boring, so very, very boring.
Libby’s parents were scientists, stationed for a “tour of duty”, as
they called it, on the newly settled world of Iago Prime to “evaluate
the viability of the colony established there”, whatever the hell that
meant.
Whenever Libby’s parents went somewhere, it inevitably meant that
Libby had to go there as well. And absolutely no one ever asked her how
she felt about that or whether she wanted to go at all.
Up to now, Mom and Dad’s assignments had only taken a few weeks or
months at most. They jetted off somewhere — a deep sea colony, an
Antarctic research base, Luna City or even the Mars colony — did their
evaluations, wrote their reports and that was it. They never stayed for
very long anywhere, never long enough that it was a problem, at any
rate.
But Iago Prime was different. It was much further away than anywhere
else, for starters, and therefore, Libby’s parents were supposed to stay
for eleven months — almost a whole year — on Iago Prime.
Worse, they’d left in October, which meant that they’d spent
Christmas here on Iago Prime. And wherever the jobs of Libby’s parents
had taken them, they’d always made sure to spend Christmas at home in
Boston on Earth. It was — like — the law, an absolute rule that could
never be violated.
Until this year. Until Iago Prime.
Libby’s parents always made a big ado about how great it was for her
to experience all those different worlds and cultures while growing up.
Cause research had shown that getting to experience a whole lot of
different worlds and cultures as a kid was beneficial for future
development. It made individuals more open-minded and was an effective
antidote against the sort of narrow-minded patriotism and nationalism
that had almost destroyed the world in the previous centuries.
However, no one had ever asked Libby how she felt about being
uprooted and dragged to a different place, even a different planet all
the time. Okay, so she figured being raised to be open-minded was a good
thing — it sounded like a good thing, at any rate. As for that whole
“antidote against narrow-minded patriotism and nationalism” thing, Libby
wasn’t quite sure what all that meant. But there had been a lot of wars
in the previous centuries — Libby had seen pictures and vids — and
there weren’t any now, so she supposed that was a good thing, too.
But she still didn’t understand why those undeniably good things
required moving somewhere else all the time. Why couldn’t she become
more open-minded and get the antidote against whatever, while staying
put in one place?
Because to be honest, this constant moving around was annoying. Cause
whenever Libby had made friends somewhere, she had to leave and move
somewhere else, cause Mom and Dad’s job was finished. And back home in
Boston, she didn’t have any friends either, because who’d want to be
friends with someone who was never there?
Mom and Dad didn’t seem to mind — in fact, Libby wasn’t even sure, if
they had friends at all. But Libby minded. Because she wanted to have
friends, good friends like the kids in all those vid series who went
swimming or played sports together and had adventures.
“But you’re having adventures, dear,” Mom had once said, when Libby
complained about that, “You’re visiting places that most people never
get to see, let alone most kids.”
Libby didn’t care. She’d rather have friends.
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About Cora Buhlert:
Cora Buhlert was
born and bred in North Germany, where she still lives today – after time
spent in London, Singapore, Rotterdam and Mississippi. Cora holds an MA
degree in English from the University of Bremen and is currently
working towards her PhD.
Cora has been writing, since she was a teenager, and has published
stories, articles and poetry in various international magazines. She is
the author of the Silencer series of pulp style thrillers, the Shattered
Empire space opera series, the In Love and War science fiction romance series, the Helen Shepherd Mysteries and plenty of
standalone stories in multiple genres. When Cora is not writing, she
works as a translator and teacher.
