“Christmas is still over four months away.”
Klaus looked up from his wood carving to study his wife, who sat across from him, busy knitting a winter hat.
“What makes you say that, my dear?”
“Well, it is the middle of August. It was a hot day today and it’s slow cooling down. We should be sitting on the porch, having a drink, taking in the breeze. But here we are, you carving a toy while I work on a hat.”
“You know we have to. Remember how one year we didn’t get started until after my birthday? And how much trouble it was at the last moment to get everything finished in time?”
Stephanie nodded. “And there’s going to be even more children in my class this year, I’m sure. But still, it is hard to think of Christmas when it’s the middle of summer.”
Klaus chuckled as he realized how often they had had conversations like this in the past thirteen years of their marriage. It had become as much a part of their tradition as the making of the presents for the children in Stephanie’s class.
Every year, they spent many late summer and fall evenings carving wooden toys and knitting hats and mittens and scarves for the children, many of whom were from poor families who did not have much. Then, the second to last day of school, Klaus would be at home baking a loaf of bread for each of the children to take home with them the next day, along with the presents they had made.
“It is a pity the Abrahams moved away,” he mused. “Sue wrote a letter saying that she is doing the same thing in her new school, but we could definitely have used her help here.”
“There are so few children we can give something to smile about at Christmas. I wish we could do more for them.”
⁂
The next day was a Sunday, and Klaus and Stephanie took a walk along the river. Klaus had long ago told his wife about the strange cave and what had happened, and they had checked out the cave together a couple of times. It was still dimly lit, and still dead quiet.
It would be his birthday on Thursday, and Klaus was in a pensive mood. He felt he was getting old. When in his forties, he thought himself a man in the prime of his life. Now he was looking at fifty approaching, and there was no way he could pretend that was still young.
He and Stephanie never had any children, even though they wanted to. They had tried, first enthusiastically, later more irregularly, but it never seemed to work. They chalked it up to providence, believing God must have a reason for their infertility. Stephanie threw herself more and more into her teaching. She started the tradition of bringing Christmas presents for the children in her class and Klaus eagerly supported her. Their work on those Christmas presents was only interrupted at harvest time, when everyone had to help out on the farm.
Stephanie was also lost in thought, although in her case it wasn’t about having children. She had accepted that her pupils were her children long ago. But she was also feeling the weight of her age and wondered who was going to take care of Klaus and her when they got older.
They reached the end of the narrow path along the river and were ready to start the climb up the steep banks when they noticed the dark clouds that had formed behind them. A summer storm was approaching fast, with a sky that was almost pitch black, interrupted by flashes of lightning.
“We can’t get back home in time,” Klaus said. “We could get to the cave, though, if we hurry.”
Stephanie nodded and they turned around on the path along the river. By the time they reached the side trail up the river bank, the dark clouds had reached them and the first rain drops started to fall. They ran up the trail to the cave.
The summer storm broke out in earnest when they reached the hole in the hillside. They climbed into the opening and quickly stepped through the fake back wall into the corridor.
Once safely away from the entrance, they stopped and looked at each other. Their summer clothes were soaked and dripping on the floor. Their hair hung in streaks down their faces.
“Well, we almost made it,” Stephanie observed.
Klaus laughed. “Well yes, and obviously, ‘almost’ doesn’t cut it. But at least we’re not getting any wetter now.”
“Let’s sit down against the wall. Looks like we’re going to be here for a while.”
They quietly sat down, each lost in their own thoughts. Ten minutes had passed when suddenly a panel opened in the wall opposite them and a box that seemed to float a quarter inch above the floor came out, heading straight for the puddles they had left on the floor. The box moved back and forth over the puddle, cleaning the water up somehow, and disappeared back into the wall.
“What in everything that’s holy was that?” Stephanie exclaimed.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” Klaus replied. “But it looked like some kind of machine to me. So something is still going on and active here, even though the Doctor said everything would be shut down.”
He got up and paced around. “There has to be something we can do,” he said. “If there is machinery here, it must be possible to make it work for us. What was it the Doctor had said? Focus in my mind. I have to focus somehow.”
He stopped walking and closed his eyes. First he tried conjuring up an image of his brother Nicholas, but he realized the only picture he had in his mind was of a ten-year-old boy. Then he tried, with his eyes still closed, forming an image of the room.
The image seemed to get clearer and clearer, the more he focused. Then, for some reason, the image shifted to one side of the room, down to one of the panels, then to a faint circle outlined on the panel.
He opened his eyes and looked around. The panel was there, alright, and when he got closer he could indeed see the faint circle.
Carefully he touched the circle, then pushed harder. It resisted at first but then yielded to his push and, with an audible click, slid down into the wall a little bit.
Suddenly, the light got brighter and then more and more panels on the walls started to light up. A slight draft of cool air seemed to come from one side of the room.
Stephanie came across the room and joined him. She took his hand as the room around them started to change.
“What did you do?” she asked. “What is happening?”
“I don’t know, when I tried to imagine this room in my mind, I was drawn to that panel. And you saw what happened when I pushed it.”
⁂
It took a long time for Klaus and Stephanie to figure out that they had awakened the machinery of an alien base. The machines seemed to have no trouble speaking English, which made the communication a lot easier, but they only responded to direct questions and instructions. They never volunteered any information.
It was Stephanie who eventually realized that, among other things, the base contained some kind of manufacturing component that it used to make repairs on its own machinery. But that manufacturing capability could also be used to build almost anything for which it was given an example.
It would have been natural to jump on the idea of having the base crank out endless amounts of money, but the one thing Klaus and Stephanie wanted most was to give Christmas presents to every girl and boy. They smiled at each other knowing that this year, they would be delivering to the schools in their town boxes of presents for all the children of Ann Arbor.