Null Zeit (audio story)

 was the second story of the audio anthology The Christmas Collection.

Publisher's summary
Searching for her friend Haruko, Bernice arrives on a devastated planet that seems to be at war with itself. As the situation spirals out of control, Benny soon realises that Christmas is at the very heart of every strange occurrence...

Plot
On the Brendisi Star, Benny meets with Resheph Masri, head curator of the Cairo Archive, who claims to know the whereabouts of Dr Haruko Otaka, a friend of hers that he worked with until ten months ago and who has since gone missing.

Masri explains that a star called the Constant One went nova and became the Tippler Nebula, which was seen on Earth as a sign of the coming of Jesus Christ. Masri and Otaka were part of a group of creationist astrohistorians that set up a colony on the nearby Ulkesh with the Horizon space platform in orbit, but they split into two groups: one which believed that Jesus was a scout for an alien invasion and another which believed that he was the first of a race of superhumans. Masri received a transmission from Otaka talking about armageddon.

Benny prepares to make planetfall and hears a voice telling her to let a feeling wash over her. Suddenly, she finds herself running with Masri and with no memory of what has happened in the seven months since she heard the voice. They hide from people astride cyborg reindeer, one of whom Masri recognises, in a trench full of corpses before fleeing and finding Otaka, Horst and several other scientists around a fire. They explain that armies have come to fight over what they have called the Christmas Angel, which fell from the sky.

Otaka takes Benny to see the Angel, which she recognises as a character from The Atlas of Made-Up Lands and the Things That Live There; she realises that they are all inside the total immersion suite built by the scientists on the Horizon, that the Tippler Nebula has stimulated the colonists' aggressive tendencies and that she and Masri had entered it to save Otaka. The three of them leave and alter the total immersion suite to a summer setting in the hopes that they will have nothing more to fight about, with Masri intending on securing the funds to build a reflective shield to protect Ulkesh from the Tippler Nebula's effects.

Otaka requires specialist medical care and is taken to a hospital. Benny stays with her and tells the story of what happened to a group of journalists, asking them for any questions after the story ends.

Characters

 * Bernice Summerfield
 * Resheph Masri
 * Haruko Otaka
 * Able Seaman Mervyn Gant
 * Horst

Worldbuilding

 * The Earth Antiquities Committee sent Masri to Ulkesh.
 * Otaka grew up in Ishikawa. Her parents gave her a nickname which translated to "sunbeams through the leaves".
 * Benny and Otaka got drunk on Phobian wine whilst on the way back from the Scarlet Cluster.
 * Christianity brought enlightenment, exaltation, reformation, persecution, division, war and the bestselling book in Terran space.
 * Benny sarcastically says that she is Puff the Magic Dragon.

Continuity
to be added