The Christmas Present by Gordon R. Dickson (F&SF, January 1958) opens with a young boy called Allan talking to an alien called Harvey about how his mother is decorating a thorn tree for the family’s first Xmas on the planet:
There was beauty on Cidor, but it was a different beauty. It was a black-and-silver world where the thorn trees stood up like fine ink sketches against the cloud-torn sky; and this was beautiful. The great and solemn fishes that moved about the uncharted pathways of its seas were beautiful with the beauty of large, far-traveled ships. And even Harvey, though he did not know it himself, was most beautiful of all with his swelling iridescent jellyfish body and the yard-long mantle of silver filaments spreading out through it and down through the water. Only his voice was croaky and unbeautiful, for a constricted air-sac is not built for the manufacture of human word. pp. 34-35
Allan adds that the decorations will make the tree beautiful, and that Harvey will understand what “beautiful” means when he sees the finished product. However, when Allan goes back to the house on his own, what he sees upsets him, as the tree isn’t the same as the one on the ship out. After his mother consoles him Allan goes out and briefly brings Harvey in to see the tree before taking him back to the water.
Allan and his mother wrap their presents later that evening, and he tells her that he wants to give Harvey one of his figurines, a painted clay astrogator, as a Christmas present. His mother tells him it is too late to go out again, so she goes to give the gift to Harvey instead, and also explains to the alien the concept of exchanging presents at Christmas time. Then she asks Harvey about water-bulls—dangerous sea creatures known to attack boats—as her husband will be coming back by river the next day. Harvey tells her their behaviour isn’t consistent (“One will. One will not”), before adding that his species is “electric”, so the water-bulls don’t bother them.
After Allan’s mother leaves (spoiler), Harvey swims out of the outlet and swims to a place between two islands where he finds a water-bull; he tells it he has come to make it into a present.
The story closes with Allan’s father returning home the next day by boat. En route he and the other settlers find a dead water-bull floating on the surface and, on closer examination, they find the crushed body of a Cidorian nearby. Allan’s father realises that the dead Cidorian is Harvey, his son’s friend, and asks the other settlers not to tell him about what they have seen. After they leave, there is an elegiac closing passage:
Behind them, the water-bull carcass, disturbed, slid free of the waterlogged tree and began to drift downriver. The current swung it and rolled, slowly, over and over until the crushed central body of the dead Cidorian rose into the clean air. And the yellow rays of the clear sunlight gleamed from the glazed pottery countenance of a small toy astrogator, all wrapped about with silver threads, and gilded it. p. 42
I didn’t really buy the ending of this one, which seems to involve an overly disproportionate act in return for a simple gift. But I liked the alien setting, Harvey, and the last passage was still rattling around inside my head days later.
*** (Good). 3,300 words. Story link.