Tis the season - somewhere

There are days that x0x0 honestly surprises me. With everything that's been happening over the last few weeks, between the trial and subsequent escape, the troubles on Caliban and the Replicants coming home to Hale's, and some more personal issues, it's been a bit confusing. A bit depressing on some level, truth be known. But x0x0's somehow managed to brighten the whole Gorram colony.

We don't really have Seasons so much on Hale's Moon, as an epicyclic change in ambient light and radiation. Our axial tilt was only a couple of degrees and our orbit around Kalidaza was close to spherical. While Penglai was in orbit around Kalidaza with us, as a protostar it wasn't any brighter than Bai Hu, a type A0, or even Georgia, a G0, in our sky. Our seasons, such as they were, weren't the usual cycle.

And it was always dry.

That didn't stop x0x0 from importing a fair bit of preserved greenery and decorations for the Yule season. She'd set it up to celebrate a season we didn't have, based on a calendar we didn't use, from a world that was lost to history, to celebrate a holiday based on events that may, or may not, have happened twenty one hundred years before the Exodus from Earth that Was.

Not that it mattered. It was awful festive and the townsfolk loved it. Even had people dropping in from nearby colonies to have a gander. There was a cynical streak in me that could see it as Blue Sun making nice in a public relations sort of way: Give the people something cheerful so they'll look the other way when Blue Sun did something that maybe they shouldn't ought to.

But I also knew x0. At least as much as I could. And I could see x0 setting all that up because she really did want the folk here to have a bright spot. Reminded me that this time last year, on the old calendar anyway, Sabrina and I were just getting together. Didn't matter that I didn't follow the Shepherd's Way, there was a reason to celebrate the season.

Such as it was.

The Dry season.

Always the Dry season.

Was a good distraction though. Sentry and Mikie were still on the run. Or in hiding. Or something. Krenshar and his kin were still settling in, along with, it seemed, a fair number of folk who'd had digs on Caliban. Somewhere out in the desert what remained of the Loyalists, if anything remained of the Loyalists, weren't having a good time of it. And deep beneath Hale's Mother Bot and her young were still biding their time. Unless the thing had spontaneously shut itself down.

Ah . . . the holidays.