Watson

Winters on the world of Watson are terrible things to endure. Long, dark, and bitterly cold, lasting eight of the local calendar’s thirteen months as the planet moves away from its parent star. Little more than a ball of ice, only just able to maintain a livable atmosphere, and even then, only with significant technological assistance.

That humans tried to settle there at all is testament to the universe’s strange sense of humor. Initial surveys of the system had indicated a far more pleasant world, quickly drawing a wave of colony ships to its distant shores. By the time they arrived however, their promised land was gone, altered by some unknown cataclysm into its current, frigid state. With no viable way back, the settlers had no choice but to make planetfall and try to salvage some kind of life for themselves out of the disaster.

The first years on Watson were a time of great hardship. Many were lost in the scramble to establish the colony, trading both life and limb to produce what little heat and food they could. More than one winter came close to ending them completely, halted only by rigorous rationing and the rare trade ship that arrived from the Core Systems. They lived, though more than that not even they could say for sure.  

Such was the state the colony was in when a miracle was visited upon them.

It was the seventh year since planetfall, deep in the grip of winter’s chill. As they always did, the people held on by threads, huddled in their shelters as they waited for either spring or death, whichever came first. To their great surprise, it was neither of those, but instead the rumble of ship engines that roused them from their long winter’s nap.

All rushed to the spaceport just in time to see the departure of a mighty vessel. Its hull bore no markings but was instead painted in the brightest shade of red most had seen in a good long time. It was also enormous, far larger than the normal wildcat traders that made their way to such a desolate place. Unusual and unexpected, growing only stranger when it was discovered what the ship had left behind.

A veritable cornucopia of supplies sat waiting in the port. Food, fuel, material of all kinds, enough to maintain the colony twice over with extra to spare. There were machines to break new ground and seeds to sow it with bountiful harvests. Everything Watson needed not just to survive, but to thrive in the year to come.

Yet it was not any of this boon that the people truly remembered. Among the practical, there were stashed the most frivolous of things imaginable. Finely wrought children’s toys of wood and brass, still fresh and gleaming like new. Bottles of aged wine and spirits, sat neatly next to casks of fine spices, sugar, and salt. An entire library of books, films, games, and music from worlds beyond the sky. Pots of paint, fine silks, instruments of all kinds and sounds. All this and more sat waiting to be found on that winter’s morning.

The people were stunned, elated at their fortune, and bursting with questions uncountable. Not a one of which they would ever know the answer to as the ship had already broken atmosphere and departed for parts unknown. They wondered if they had perhaps dreamed the entire thing, at least until someone thought to check the radio. There they found but a single message waiting for them, the only words ever sent by the mysterious ship. Words still spoken to this very day at the celebrations held in the deepest and darkest of Watson’s winters.

“Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.”

END