How Uncle Benjamin Avoided Expanding a 2,300-Year-Old Earth Mistake, and Saved Room at the Table If Not Quite at the Inn

A composite of two pure fractals with one in differing palettes, all made in Apophysis 2.09

One of the things about military service, far from home: different holidays come and go, but one's duty does not always allow for time off.

However, a strong man of faith and purpose walks so every day, and needs no certain day.

Cmdr. Helmut Allemande and his lovely wife Ursula gently reminded my uncle, at his work manually cataloging the beings of Sultruviam that had to be protected, that Advent was far spent, and Christmas was near on Earth.

“I know,” Acting Ambassador Benjamin Banneker said, “which is actually why I have to get this done and get to the meeting with the Sultruviamin elders involved with this portion of the matter. I am not a true telepath, but I sense that something is missing. But I appreciate your reminding me, my dear Allemanden ..."

The two Germans grinned at my uncle's proper Germanic plural for them.

" ... and given that that Christmas is celebrated for three days in Germany, I'll catch y'all before the end. You and the Dixons have a good time until then.”

"What if we just give you more help and get you loose sooner?" I said.

"You are on leave, Khadijah," my uncle said. "Enjoy the holiday with Rufus. I'll catch up."

"I will take care of this, Captain Biles-Dixon, because I asked to be here and not be on leave," Cmdr. Allemande said. "You will make your meeting on time, Admiral and Acting Ambassador -- and meine liebste Ursula, I ask you to excuse me for working overtime in the next week so that we might have Christmas just as we want it."

Frau Allemande smiled ... she knew that the loss of her husband's Uncle Hans had devastated him, and that my uncle's presence gave him great comfort. Doing without Uncle Hans at Christmas could not be helped. Doing without Uncle Benjamin: not optional.

"Natürlich," she said. "That is the perfect solution."

And it was!

'Twas two days before Christmas when that meeting occurred and the acting ambassador presented the catalog for the review of the humanoid and Pixsee Sultruviamin elders. He had one additional question.

“I could not ask it directly but desire that, since you can be in telepathic communication with the Guardians of the Sultruviam atmosphere, you might ask if there is anything I have overlooked regarding them. I do not know enough about how they reproduce and care for their offspring to be able to say with confidence how ships of my fleet's classes will impact that process upon coming into orbit.”

Ambassador Ollter, the eldest of the elders present, closed his eyes, as did his near-peers, and we – I had accompanied my uncle that day along with Cmdr. Allemande to assist in the presentation – waited for an hour for the answer.

“The Guardians have need of nothing that we in the bodies of Sultruviam and Earth and worlds like unto it may do for them,” Ambassador Ollter intoned at last, “but their gratitude for your asking, Ambassador Banneker, they will make known to you in person, for you are not telepathic indeed, but because of your soul, you are enough, Earth-Guardian.”

The review would take a week, and trade agreements could not be done until that was done, so it was a relaxed holiday walk back to our accommodations for my uncle, Cmdr. Allemande, and me, as the Guardians of the Sultruviam Sky did their colorful work, maintaining the livability of the planet.

“What I was thinking,” my uncle confided in us, “was of a great Earthly mistake that happened about 2,300 years ago, and how we need not export it to other planets.”

“Must have been some kind of mistake,” I said. “Generally, history is more forgiving!”

“Khadijah, there would have been no forgiveness anywhere for mankind on this one, except that the solution was determined to be worked out in a stable before the creation of the universe,” Uncle Benjamin said. “The great powers of government and local powers of commerce in Bethlehem left no room at the inn for a young man named Joseph and a young woman named Mary, who was in labor with the Savior.”

Cmdr. Allemande jumped.

“I never thought of it that way!” he said.

“It was on my mind all week, Commander,” Uncle Benjamin said. “As a Earthly believer, and among the even larger Looking community across the galaxy for the Redeemer of the Universe to again set foot on Earth and then set the universe right again, I thought about it … here we are doing this great thing, and we do not know what else might be affected if we don't do it right. Children, of all types, are so often overlooked … but if indeed all things are written before hand, then even on Sultruviam it was ordained long before we were born that we would make sure we did not gin up a great situation of government and commerce that leaves the children out in the cold here.”

“That's deep, Uncle,” I said. “We all took ecological training as part of our fleet standard modules, and as science officers we got even more specialized modules, but wow, Uncle.”

“I see you are working not to get a millstone tied around your neck and get pushed into any sea in the galaxy for messing with the little ones, Acting Ambassador,” Cmdr. Allemande said.

“I am an old man now,” my uncle said, “and I have learned that the more you do in accord with what you say you believe if what you believe is true, the better off you are and so is everyone around you. Since I have staked my whole eternity on the truth we most often remember at Christmas, and since I know messing with any being's children is strictly forbidden in that same line of belief, I could not propose a solution that overlooked the children of the Guardians of this world. Their duty is to keep the planet alive until the Redeemer comes – so we must leave room at the table, if not precisely at the inn, for the children who are the future Guardians of this world.”

The sky above us flashed suddenly, and that light arced down and through Uncle Benjamin, who gasped and fell back – and because we grabbed him, and because our souls and his were so knit together in love, we saw what he saw: a vision of the Guardian hatchery, somewhere that the stellar radiation played fantastically with the atmosphere and was being fed directly to the brightly colored developing ones while adult Guardians stood guard.

We heard what was said as well.

“Benjamin Banneker, Earth-Guardian, may the blessing you thought for our children be given by the Redeemer to you and all those you love, and may the peace of the Redeemer, henceforth and ever more, remain upon you, as does our goodwill toward mankind for His sake, and your sake.”

And then suddenly we were back, sitting on the ground of Sultruviam until we were able to rise and go on, our arms wrapped around my uncle, for Uncle Benjamin's experience had been several times more intense, and he was 82 years old. His bionic legs were ever-steady, but he had truly been rocked to his core, so he gratefully hung on as his mind processed what he had seen.

To this day, the Guardian hatchery has never been seen in terms of scientific observation – most likely it does not exist quite as it was presented to make sense to Uncle Benjamin's human mind. Nonetheless, that it exists we know because atmospheric events that indicate both hatchings and comings-of-age that spread out from a central point every few years – but that point is never fixed, moving with the cycles of stellar storms the planet experiences. That also led to the discovery of the rich interplay between the Guardians and both sun cycles and planetary cycles. Not yet have any Guardian children been harmed in the making of these scientific strides!