A SNN Christmas Carol

Stave I: Cathcart's Ghost or My, That's a Long Chain You Have

Cathcart was dead to begin with. There was some doubt about whether he was dead, or AWOL, or just plain gone. But for our purposes, Cathcart was dead. Ballway knew he was dead? Well, Ballway wasn't too sure, either, but played along with everyone else. Cathcart and he were partners, though, for a couple of years. Ballway was his sole employee, his sole protégé, his sole friend, and his sole satirist. The mention of Cathcart's disappearance brings me back to where I started from. Or does it contradict what I said at the beginning? There was some doubt as to whether Cathcart was dead.

Ballway never painted out old Cathcart's name. There it stood, years afterward, to the right of his office door, "Mike Cathcart, Editor-in-Chief." Ballway, though, came up with his own name, "Executive Editor." Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand-at-the-gamma-welder, Ballway! A squeezing, wrenching, yelling, kicking, lying, cheating, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as micro-milled duranium foam, which only disrupters could penetrate (and the occasional Borg cutting tool).

External humor and cold had little effect on Ballway. No warmth could warm him, no vacuum of space chill him. No solar winds blew more bitter than he, no asteroids more sharp and ready to kill, no torpedo more guided towards its target. No one ever stopped him in the hallways, saying, "How are you, Ballway?" or "How about that Fleet 2, Ballway?" But what did Ballway care? That was what he liked -- to edge along the paths of life, to stave from the crowds and evil GMs that lined the roads.

Once upon a time -- many hours ago, Ballway sat in his office at SNN Center in Chicago, busily editing the next issue of WeBBSights. It was cold, and bleak, and foggy (someone had been playing with the weather controls), and only Ballway sat comfortably, unfazed.

The door of Ballway’s office was open, so that he might keep his eye on his Associate Editor, who in a dismal cell beyond, a sort of tank, was writing WeBBSights. Ballway had a very small fire, but the Associate Editor had even less of a fire, and was beginning to feel a chill. He couldn’t replenish it, though,for Ballway kept the deuterium tank in his own office, and so surely asthe clerk came in with an empty pipe, the Executive Editor turned him away.

"A merry Christmas, Uncle! Sha-ka-ree save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Ballway’s nephew, Mike Barclay, who came upon him so quickly that he could do nothing but stare, dumbfounded.

"Bah!" said Ballway, "Gubmuh!"

He had so heated himself, walking in the warp reactor, Scrooge’s nephew, that he was all aglow, his eyes sparkled, he gave off trilithium.

"Christmas a gubmuh, Uncle!" said Mike Barclay. "You don’t mean that, I’m sure."

"I do," said Ballway, "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re a lowly writer just like everyone else."

"Come then," retorted Barclay a little too cheerily, "what right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re the Executive Editor, for God’s sake!"

"How else should I be," returned the Uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon Merry Christmas! What’s Christmas but a time for writers to slack off, sims to go even slower than they are, and the Fleetwide OOC to host a gala display of stupidity that rivals the McParty? If I could work my will," said Ballway indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on their lips should be boiled in his own gagh, and buried with a stake of latinum through his heart! He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the Uncle, sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it" repeated Ballway's nephew, "But you don’t keep it"

"Keep it! But you don't keep it!

"Let me leave it alone then," said Ballway. "Much good may it do you! Much good has it ever done you!"

"Don’t be angry, Uncle, come dine with us tomorrow!"

"Dine? With you? Bah! I’d rather be seen with Jerry Phelps than dine with you, you ignorant toad!"

"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you in this manner. But I have kept my duty to Christmas, and I shall keep it to the last. Merry Christmas, Uncle!"

"Good afternoon," said Ballway.

"And a Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!" muttered Ballway.

In letting the nephew out, two more gentlemen entered. They were pleasant enough, and removed their hats and greeted the Writer. They had books and papers in their hand, and stopped to look through them.

"SNN Center, I believe," muttered one of them, glancing at his list. "May I have the pleasure of addressing a Mr. Ballway, or a Mr. Cathcart?"

"Mr. Cathcart has been gone these several years," replied Ballway, looking up from his editing, "Gone this very night."

"It is at this point of the year," addressed one of them, "that it is more desirable that we have provisions for the Poor and Shipless. Many are in want of positions, and more are in want of Internet access."

At this, Ballway stopped editing. "Who are you sir?" he questioned.

"Hertzsch, sir. Greg Hertzsch, ah, well, the, personnel director."

"Then surely you can supply provisions for these shipless souls!"

"Well, sir, we at the personnel office can only do as much as we want; we want to do little right now. Now, sir, how much shall I put down for your donation?"

"None," replied Ballway, going back to his editing.

"You wish to be left anonymous?" asked Hertzsch.

"I wish to be left alone," muttered Ballway, "and leave these people to go about their shipless business. Better they be without a ship and decrease the surplus number of names in the database."

Seeing it useless to pursue their point, Hertzsch and the other left in solitude, left Ballway and his Writer in their world.

The cold outside the building at SNN Center was bitter, a cool wind whipped about the facade of the place, a wind that chilled to the bone. Inside, Ballway and his Writer were making preparations to leave for the day. As Ballway turned down the lights, he looked quizzically at his Writer.

"I suppose you’ll want all day tomorrow?" he asked.

"If that is convenient, sir," stammered Larry Garfield.

"It is not convenient in the foggiest," muttered Ballway, "and if I were to save you an eighth bar of latinum you would think yourself ill-bound?"

Garfield nodded meekly.

"And yet you think it not ill-bound when I pay you a day’s wage for not a day’s work?"

"Well, sir, it is only once a year."

"A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twenty-fifth of December! I suppose, though, that you would have the day off anyway. Be here all the earlier the next morning!"

The Writer promised he would, and soon hurried out the door.

Ballway, on the other hand, lingered as he locked the office and strolled down Main Street, oblivious to the cold about him, to the laugh and play of boys at the far end of the lane, to the congeniality that greeted all others but himself, and he cared not for these things. They did not directly concern him, and so he did not pay attention to them. Still oblivious, Ballway went on his way until he continued to his own house.

It is a fact that there was nothing particular about Ballway’s door-knocker. It was not more ornate than most others; nor was it less so than others. It was a door-knocker, and functioned as such without frills. It is also a fact that Ballway had not thought once about his AWOL partner, except for minutes earlier at the mention of his being gone for several years. So it was a great surprise when Ballway put his key into the lock of his door and saw -- before his eyes -- Cathcart’s face on the knocker!

It was there, where the knocker would be, and was so fashioned as though it were indeed the knocker. The hideous face loomed at Ballway, and he sputtered, then looked again. It was a knocker once more, a plain old-fashioned knocker.

He dismissed this and soon entered his quiet home, proceeding without much thought for the darkness and dismal quality of the apartments about him. Ballway went along, locking the door behind him, and lighting an emergency flare as he went. Half-a-dozen florescent lamps like those out in the street wouldn’t have lighted the way very well, and Ballway didn’t care. Darkness was cheap, and he liked it. Before he shut his heavy door, he went through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough memories of the face to desire that.

Sitting-room, engineering room, evil strategic planning room, all safe. No one under table, under sofa; a holographic fire on one side of the room, and the little saucepan of replicated gruel (Ballway had a cold in his head, though he shouldn’t have, since medical science mapped the brain, and discovered the cure for the common cold. How odd, then, in the episode "Angel One (TNG)" did the crew succumb to a cold . . . but I digress) upon the hob.

He sat in his chair by the fire, thinking about the new issue of WeBBSights, and calmly eating his replicated gruel, when the image of Cathcart came back to him.

"Gubmuh!" said Ballway, and walked across the room.

After several revolutions around the room he sat down again, pondering in his pondering chair. As he looked about the chamber his eye happened upon a red klaxon on one of the walls. It was there only because Starfleet required klaxons everywhere, and hadn’t been used since the Founders scare of ’73. It was with great astonishment, then, did Ballway observe it begin to blink red and emit a warning sound.

That might have lasted a minute, or half a minute, but it seemed like an entire duty shift to Ballway. As abruptly as it began, then, did the klaxon stop. Then, from down below, perhaps down in the basement where the extra deuterium was kept, Ballway presumed hearing a rattling sound, so quiet that only the most perceptive ears could hear it. He knew that the ghosts of ex-newspaper editors were described as dragging binder clips behind them.

And suddenly, a loud bang as the door to the basement flew open, and the steady pad of footsteps coming up the stairs, these disembodied feet with them hauling legs, and attached to that a torso, and a head, all dragging behind them long chains of binder clips. This monstrous construction was now outside his very door.

"It’s Gubmuh, still!" exclaimed Ballway.

His color changed, then, when the door to Ballway’s chambers flew open, and the holographic fire responded to the newly computed variable by leaping up in a burst of hot blue flame.

The very same face as on the knocker, and wearing the outfit of Starfleet, and carrying behind him a considerable chain. It was made of binder clips, and on the chain was fastened an offset press, telephones, pages and pages of deadlines and drafts, and a nameplate, now tarnished with age, reading "Editor-in-Chief."

Ballway looked into the dark, piercing eyes of his old boss; they were eyes as cold as death. Ballway would later recall that he saw a hint of his own reflection in the gray moroseness of Cathcart’s eyes, such as they were.

"How now!" said Ballway, caustic and cold as ever, "What do you want from me?"

"Much!" -- Cathcart’s voice, no doubt about it.

"Who are you?"

"Ask me who I was."

"Who were you then?" said Ballway, raising his voice.

"In RPG I was your old boss, Mike Cathcart."

"Can you sit down?" asked Ballway.

"Yes," replied the Ghost, its voice answering with a peculiar echo, as though he were in the middle of an open auditorium. "You don’t believe in me," it said, sitting in one of the hard, Starfleet-issue chairs.

"I don’t," said Ballway.

"What evidence of reality have you, save that of your senses? Why do you doubt your senses?"

"Because," exclaimed Ballway, "a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the gastric organs makes them cheat. You may be a bit of undigested I’danian spice pudding, a blot of yamok sauce, a crumb of larish pie, a fragment of underdone Thalian chocolate mousse. There’s more of Owon eggs than wonder about you, whatever you are!"

At this the spirit screamed an awful scream, such as SNN writers heard when a deadline was at hand, and only journalists know its shrill shriek and characteristic frantic e-mail.

"Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Is it WeBBSights? I know we shouldn’t be making fun of Aye on the WeBB, but it’s so damn easy!"

"Do you believe in me or not?" shouted the Ghost.

"Yes, yes, but, why do you trouble me?" asked Ballway.

"I wear the paper clip chain I forged in life," began the Ghost. "I made it . . ."

"Yes, spirit, but they are binder clips," interjected Ballway.

"WORSE YET!" yelled the Ghost of Cathcart, so that Ballway fell onto the floor and was staring up at the apparition of his old boss. "I made it clip by clip, foot by foot, and carried it of my own free will, and wore it because the Ghost of Jim Midyette told me to. He can be very pushy, you know."

Ballway trembled more and more.

"Do you know the weight of the chain you carry about you, Michael J. Ballway? It was as long and full as this two Christmas Eves ago! It is a mighty paper clip chain, longer even than David Platt’s!"

At this Ballway hid his eyes, wanting to hear no more. "Speak to me of comfort, Mike Cathcart!"

"I have none to give. It comes in other forms, Ballway, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of men. My spirit never wandered beyond SNN Center. In life, my spirit never wandered beyond the narrow limits of my office, perhaps once or twice to the coffee machine down the hall."

"We replaced that," said Ballway. "It’s now a shrine to Mike Bourdaa. Those are mandatory in all Starfleet buildings."

The Ghost blinked its eyes. "Well call me Oliver and give me a Twist. Bourdaa, huh? Who woulda thunk it."

"You must have been slow about it, Mike," said Ballway, "Wandering the galaxy these past, er, several years."

"Slow?" remarked the Ghost. "Slow!" At this it let out a shriek and clanked its binder clips so loudly that even the EDir would have heard it (he is a sound sleeper all the time.)

"I was slow, indeed! Slow in getting on with my life and not realizing that another world out there existed!"

"But Mike," said Ballway, "you were always such a good businessman."

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!"

It held up its binder clips and shook them for Ballway to see. "Always at this time of year I am forced to walk about the galaxy looking at the revelry of others, myself damned forever never to gaze upon the blessed Star which led the Wise Men (no, not the ED council) to that humble abode (not the Prez’s office)."

"Hear me," it exclaimed, "for my time is short."

"I will," said Ballway, "But first have some Blue Jell-O!"

"Nay," said the Ghost with a look of disgust, "I never cared for SNN-issue Blue Jell-O. I rather enjoyed the green stuff, you know, lime!"

"I know not of lime," replied Ballway, puzzled.

"But anyhow, tonight I give you a chance to escape the fate that was given me. Three ghosts, Mike Ballway, shall visit you. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls One. The second the next night at the same time, and the third the following evening when the hour of twelve ceases to be. Look to me no more, and look that for your own sake you remember what has passed between us!"

The specter then took up a copy of WeBBSights lying on the table.

"WeBBSights? BAH!" it exclaimed.

The Ghost proceeded to venture toward the window, and with its ghostly finger beckoned Ballway to come to the window. Then, as Ballway watched, the Ghost leapt out the window, joining the hundreds -- nay -- thousands of other phantoms that adorned the night sky. Ballway could identify a few: Jerry Phelps, Franco Torres, B.J. Phillips -- all the old souls of STF were there in the sky. And as soundly as they had appeared to him, they disappeared, fading in place.

Ballway closed the window and walked to where the Ghost had entered, looked at the klaxon that signaled its entry. He began to say, "Gubmuh," but thought the better of it, judging from his experiences with Cathcart’s ghost. So tired was Ballway that he retired to his anti-gravity bed and fell asleep without changing into his Starfleet-issue pajamas.