Boz
by Kristine Kathryn Rusch



Boz woke up slowly, convinced he was hearing an
ancient crooner sing "White Christmas." He pulled
his pillow over his head to drown out the noise
before he remembered where he was.

Space. The ship. Light-years from anything.

Christmas carols? He'd never expected to
hallucinate them.

He sat up. His room was filling slowly with light.
The on-board systems had been set up to mimic
a typical Earth day (as if a typical Earth day had
constant sunshine), and they did adjust for the
seasons.

When the Beautiful Dreamer had been in the
planning stages, the crew decided two things: that
they'd remain on a 24-hour day, and they'd follow
the western calendar. He didn't mind the 24-hour
day, but he saw no reason to keep the calendar.
He had voted against it and had been overruled,
which was funny, given that he was going to be
the only one awake to "enjoy" that calendar.

He sighed, rolled over, and pulled the pillow off his
head. Sure enough, some twentieth century icon
was singing about Christmas. Only the song had
changed to "I'll Be Home for Christmas." That was
a cruel joke. No one on this ship was going home
again.

Not that Boz cared. He hadn't had a home in
decades.

He sat up, rubbed his hand through his scraggly
hair, and asked, "Computer, what's the date?"

The computer answered in its relentlessly cheerful
voice, "December 25."

Christmas.

"I'll be go to hell," he whispered, and then
shivered.

The music wasn't playing in the computer
speakers. If it was, he would have heard it directly
in his room. Instead, it sounded far away, as if
someone were playing tunes down the hall.

(It actually sounded just like it used to when he
lived alone in New York: Christmas music would
waft at him from everywhere—his neighbor's