It rarely snowed at this latitude on Estel. Or perhaps it was the sea, more salty than on Earth, that kept it away. In the three years since they had arrived, this was only the second or third time Robin had seen snow on the ground. It made her feel a little homesick, remembering childhood Christmasses back on Earth, ‘I’m dreaming of a white Christmas’ booming from every loudspeaker, fake holly and coloured lights everywhere.
Here the closest thing to holly was a native tree with prickly purplish leaves, and the only lights were the heat lamps they huddled round in their houses, out here on the edge of the ocean.
And the stars. Robin looked up, wondering for the thousandth time if any of the brightly shining points of light was the distant yellow Sun that Earth orbited. She really should ask Jay to look it up, he was the best at finding out that kind of thing. Although it would have to wait. Jay was going to be busy for a while.
She turned to look back down to the village. A little light seeped round the edges of the thick curtains at the windows of the score or so of houses. At one in particular, the light showed brighter for a few moments as a door was opened and closed again. Soon, very soon, Rue and Jay’s baby was going to be born.
The wind grew stronger for a moment, and she had to steady herself against it. She caught the sound, far off, of a strange song, mournful and long. It was the call of the strange seal-like creatures who lived in the waters around the island.
Robin shivered as headed back to the village. At the moment it seemed a cold and bleak world to bring a child into. But she reminded herself that it had been harsher still when she first arrived. Like so many she had come hoping for a better life but instead had found herself trapped into low-paid and dangerous menial work, and harshly punished for challenging the mining corporation that ruled the planet.
Yet somehow that had led to the exploiters being overthrown, and elections that, to Robin’s surprise, overwhelmingly appointed her as leader of the Planetary Council, composed of representatives from each of the new settlements.
The challenge of creating a new society had overwhelmed her at times. She had never studied governance or law, and welding a group of former oppressed workers and some of those who had done the oppressing into a functioning and fair society had been nearly impossible. For a long while she had been forced to live in the hope that in time, something better would emerge from the tangle of good intentions and messy reality.
And it was. She had to keep believing that. The baby that was about to arrive, the first human child to be born on this planet, should be a sign of how much had changed.
Yet as she headed for the village she still gazed up at the stars, wondering restlessly if she had really done the right thing, or if she had sold the rest of the community a wild dream with no foundation in cold reality.
*****
With some reluctance Robin pushed open the door to the building that served as her office. A heat lamp glowed in the centre of the circular structure, and by its light she saw that her fellow councillor Aidan was already seated at the long desk against one wall. She hung up her coat and hat and sat down at the desk, already weary before the meeting had begun.
Aidan looked up from the datapad he was studying. “The medic has arrived and is with Rue. She says everything’s going well.”
“That’s good. I wasn’t sure she’d get here, given the weather.” Robin pushed her chair back to be a little nearer the heat lamp. “You told them I'd be there if they need anything, any help-”
“They know,” Aidan said. He paused. “Ready for the meeting?”
“I’m not looking forward to it,” Robin admitted. Recently there had been whispers on the comm network that linked the settlements together. Only vague hints and veiled threats, but Robin knew that others on the Council were questioning her ability to lead, and would make meetings difficult in an attempt to show themselves as alternative candidates.
What made it worse was that she was not certain that her accusers were wrong.
“You’ve no reason to be worried,” Aidan said reassuringly.
“I hope you’re right.” She pushed the controls on the desk that would connect them to the virtual meeting of the planetary Council.
*****
She heard Aidan moving restlessly beside her.
“You all right?” he asked. “That was pretty rough.”
She raised her head. “Am I doing the right thing?” she asked. “Has anything really changed for the better since we took over?”
“The damage done by industrial exploitation has been mitigated as far as possible,” Aidan said. “The rivers are running clean again. We’ve used the wealth of the industrialists who wanted to destroy this planet’s ecosystem to set up clean transport to connect communities and infrastructure that will have minimal impact on the environment. Half a dozen new villages are thriving, and no one’s starved. You should be proud of what’s been accomplished.”
“I am proud of what our people have done,” Robin said. “But there’s still no certainty any of it will last.” She lowered her head again. “Sometimes it’s almost impossible not to just snap at them to stop being stupid. After all we’ve been through, I can’t believe that there are still people who put their own power games ahead of the needs of other people, or the cost to the planet.”
“There always will be,” Aidan said, a touch of bitterness in his voice. “You know that before the mining company were overthrown I’d given up hope. But since they’ve been gone there’s hope again. Don’t let go of it.” She looked up to see him pull back the curtain and look out of the window. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”*
Robin got up and came to stand beside him. “That was written about another baby long ago,” she said. “Does it ever feel to you as though it’s too long ago, too far away? To generations born on this planet those stories from Earth will be just that, stories, too remote for their context to have much meaning. The first followers of that baby were fishermen and farmers, housewives and slaves. Their descendents manage machines that do the same tasks vastly more efficiently. Why should stories of angels and shepherds, kings and carpenters mean anything to them?”
He was silent for a moment, then spoke, still looking out the window. “When that baby was born, people came to visit him because they saw a star. Whether it was really a star, or a meteorite, or some other astronomical phenomenon doesn’t matter, what matters is how they reacted to it. They looked at the sky and saw something that caused them to seek out that child. Something that inspired wonder, and gave hope.” He turned to look back at her. “The same stars shine on us as shone on them.”
“We’re part of the same story,” Robin said thoughtfully. “And stories can bring people together.”
“We’ll have to adapt, to make new traditions and find new ways of telling old stories,” Aidan said. “But people will always need an excuse to relax and cheer themselves up at the harshest time of the year. To be reminded of the coming of life and light at a time when all seems dead and dark.”
He nodded in the direction of the nearby building where Rue and Jay’s baby was surely near to being born.
The thought recalled Robin to the present. “I’d better go and see how they’re doing.”
Outside a hush had fallen over the landscape, as though the village- the world- was holding its breath. Snow was falling, softly, almost gently, covering the ground with a thin white crust.
A few hours later, the stillness of the night was broken by the crying of a small voice, and a new chapter was opened in an old story.
*****
Robin watched from a shadowy corner as the community members crowded round Rue, seated in a chair close to the fire with the baby in her arms. Jay stood beside her, radiating pride and tiredness and love. A month old now, the child was well and growing fast, already too big for the first tiny clothes. The baby was wrapped now in a shawl that Robin herself had painstakingly knitted for her, from the soft fleece of a sheep-like native animal. Robin remembered her mother showing her the shawl she had knitted before Robin was born. It was a tradition, her mother had said, a memory of times past that still held meaning in the present. Robin had thought a lot about traditions in the last month, and about what Aidan had said. This ceremony was the result.
When the last of the members of the community had gathered and helped themselves to food and drink Robin stepped forward from her corner. Taking a burning stick from the fire she lit a candle made from the resin produced by a tree that grew up in the mountains. It flickered at first in the draught, but when she set it in a holder on the table it settled down and burned with a bright steady flame.
“We light this candle as a symbol of the light of creation,” she said, looking around as the community fell silent. “It reminds us that where once there was darkness, now there is light. That where the world around us is cold and seems dead, life waits for the stirring of the year. Warmth and growth will come again, in the light of the star which gives life to our planet.”
She fought down a stab of nerves at the sight of all the faces watching her, and took a breath to calm herself before she went on. “Today we celebrate the birth of the first human child to be born under this star. All of us grew up on Earth, in the light of another star. A star that many centuries ago saw the birth of another child. A child whose life and death had a profound impact on the history of that world. A child who was at one and the same time a human baby and also the God who made the very planets we live on and the stars that give us light.”
She looked across the room to where Aidan stood watching. “Earth is now very far off, and the events I spoke of may seem impossibly distant- unbelievable, even. Yet the same stars shine on us as shone on those who lived at the time. We have more in common with them than we might think. And more in common with one another. I hope that this child’s coming will be a reminder to us all of what we have to do to build a new and lasting world here on Estel, our chosen home. We have to live together in community, putting each other first. Not to allow ourselves to become closed to the needs of others, not to consider only ourselves and our loved ones. The need of one is the need of all, and the success of one is the success of all. It will be hard. What we build will never be perfect, because we are only human. But it will be better than anything we could build alone.
She paused again for breath. “And so we gather to celebrate the birth of this child, and to welcome her to our community. And I would ask you all to pledge to yourselves that you will do your best to make this community- this planet- a safe and fitting home for her and for all the children who come after. In doing that, we will make sure that light and warmth will come again. Like our ancestors, we share bread- even if it is baked with flour from peagrasses- and wine, even though it is brewed from sandcurrants rather than grapes. We are part of one story.”
Robin turned to Rue, and took the child into her arms. The baby opened her eyes, and for a second Robin was afraid she would start screaming. But the baby merely gurgled and looked up at her.
“May the stars ever shine on you, Asha,” Robin said. “May the God beyond the darkness bless you. No, not just beyond. The God who comes down into the darkness alongside us. That’s why we don’t need to fear the dark. We are never alone.”
*****
Robin could hear the party was still continuing in the hall. Prompted by her speech, someone had found recordings of old Earth Christmas carols in the data system and with enough of the sandcurrant wine inside them people were singing along.
“O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world in sin and error pining,
Till He appeared and the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks a new and glorious morn.
Fall on your knees! O hear the the angel voices
Oh, night divine! Oh, night when Christ was born!”
A thrill of hope. That described exactly how it had felt when she first held Asha. A hope that while there would always be struggles, there was something, a future, to keep on struggling for. That there would be light beyond the darkness.
She looked up. Once again the stars were indeed brightly shining. Robin wondered if one of the stars was the same star as in the nativity story, if it even was a star. Probably not. But that was the magic of the Christmas story.
“Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts by His cradle we stand.
So led by light of a star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men from the Orient land.
The King of Kings lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials born to be our friend.
He knows our need, to our weaknesses no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!”
Robin smiled, and headed for the hall to rejoin the party. It wasn’t going to be easy, trying to build a sense of community across a thinly settled planet. But she felt that- at least for now- she had found the strength to carry on.
Aidan had been right. Nowhere was too far away, too long ago to be touched by that story. The stars were ancient- many of those she could see were no doubt the same ones as had looked down on the child of Bethlehem. The stars were all part of creation, Earth’s sun, even this unfamiliar star. It was all part of the one story. The same stars shone on the small seaside village on Estel as shone on Bethlehem so long ago.
“Truly He taught us to love one another;
His law is love and His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;
And in His name all oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us praise His holy name.
Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory evermore proclaim.”
(*Gospel of John, chapter 1 verse 5.)
