Happiness Prologue THE PSY COUNCIL tried to outlaw Christmas once. It was in the year 2019, four long decades after the implementation of the Silence Protocol. The Protocol itself arose out of the overwhelming incidence of insanity and serial killing in the Psy populace. Driven to the edge, the Psy made a choice. They conditioned their young to feel nothing - not jealousy, not rage, and certainly not joy at the thought of Christmas morning. So it was that by 2019, only ice ran in the veins of the Psy politicians who wanted to make Christmas illegal. Since the Psy race controlled government then as it does now, Law 5198: Deletion of Christmas and Associated Holidays was near certain to pass. There were a few minor hiccups. Some elderly Psy - those who had been too old at the inception of Silence to allow for true conditioning - weren't certain they wanted the holiday outlawed. But the old ones were few; the last, unwanted vestiges of an emotion-filled past the Psy preferred to forget. They were ignored, their fading voices drowned out by the Silent majority. Law 5198 was read into the statute books and life moved on. Except that the humans and changelings, the other two parts of the triumvirate that is the world, took no notice. Christmas trees went up as