Contact across the Solar System

Boston Again, and Back Home

Kalna and Ilmuth continued their researches there. Harvard and MIT well deserved their reputations as great universities, and going to them was a good reason to endure Boston's very changeable weather.

The broadleaf trees' now-colorful leaves fell, making them look dead. However, the conifer trees still held on to their needle leaves, making them look alive. Around then, the Apollo 12 spacecraft went to the Moon and back, something that the two caught on TV. Its Moon astronauts stayed two days, going out each day.

Fall turned to winter, with its cold and snow, and with the Earthers celebrating their "Holiday Season" and decorating conifer trees and putting up lots of lights. Why celebrate at a time like this? Was it really about Jesus Christ? Lots of it did not have very obvious connection, like conifers, and the Bible doesn't say when Jesus Christ was born. Ilmuth decided to research this issue, and she reported back to Kalna.

"Guess what?"

"What?"

"Christmas started off as celebrating the winter solstice, long before Jesus Christ."

"I'm not surprised."

"That's important because the Sun goes further and further south, and if it doesn't stop, the world will be left in darkness and cold."

"They must not have known of much of the Universe."

"Yeah. All the older Earther cosmologies are like that -- the Earth being small and flat."

Ilmuth continued.

"All those lights are about something that's lacking this time of year -- light."

"Not electric ones I'm sure. Candles? Fires?" asked Kalna.

"Candles certainly. Look at the shapes of those light bulbs."

"They look like candle flames," Kalna said, laughing.

"About conifers," said Ilmuth, "notice that they keep their leaves. They don't look like they're dead."

"Yeah," said Kalna, "that's what 'O Christmas Tree' is all about, how these trees stay alive and green even in the worst weather."

"So that's what that song is about. I don't pay much attention to Christmas music."

"Actually, some of those songs are kind of fun."

Winter turned to spring, and the weather improved. The leafless, dead-looking trees started regrowing leaves. Another Apollo Moon mission, Apollo 13, went on its way, but it seemed to justify a certain Earther superstition about unlucky numbers. On their way to the Moon, an oxygen tank in the service-module part of the orbiter exploded, and all that part's oxygen leaked out. "Houston, we've had a problem", the crew reported back. They had to cancel their Moon landing, and they looped around the Moon to return home. The crew was kept alive by the lander for the rest of the trip. But they successfully returned home, and Kalna and Ilmuth joined the many people on the Earth and elsewhere who breathed a little easier.

A few weeks afterward, they returned to Venus for some much-needed relaxation, to meet their old friend Orthon again, and also to discuss their experiences with several other Earth observers. Like how they dealt with various sorts of obnoxious people, like door-to-door salespeople and proselytizers. Also how snow can be great fun if you are bundled up enough to keep warm. Kalna showed a picture of herself wearing a thick jacket ("I had a sweater underneath"), thick pants, boots, a tight-fitting cap, and a scarf wrapped around her nose and mouth.

"Yeah, it was a lot of clothing, but it was worth it."

The two created "How the Earthers got to their moon", a rather cutesy video about how the Americans' Saturn rockets and Apollo spacecraft work, using models of the rockets and spacecraft and doing whimsical pantomime with them. Pantomime like Kalna making the Apollo + third stage orbit Ilmuth's head before heading off to the Moon. Ilmuth, in turn, made the Apollo spacecraft orbit Kalna's head and its lander land there. All while wearing NASA-style blue jumpsuits.