Lucky Break set down the chalk, spinning around to look proudly up at her teacher. "How's this, Knowing Look?" she asked, shifting a little on her hooves. On the board behind her, Lucky had recreated a poem from Equestrian history, which was written in the unicorn script with the words arranged in the shape of a tree. It had been an ambitious choice for her first final project, far more than anything her fellows were doing, but it was the only task that had felt remotely worthy of Lucky's linguistic ability.
Her fellow students stared across the room, dumbfounded. Even the unicorns in the room didn't seem to be able to make sense of it. The teacher, Knowing Look—an older unicorn himself— leaned a little closer, squinting over the edge of his glasses as his eyes moved over the pattern. He didn't often look pleased, but that was changing now. He looked relaxed, impressed even. "You mentioned you intended to include a recitation as well."
"In Mundus Eoch, yes," she said. She no longer had to wonder at anything he or any of the other ponies around her were saying. Almost anything in Eoch made sense to her, so long as it wasn't something very technical. And learning those terms was why she'd started studying the three ancient languages that had combined to make Eoch eons ago. Mundus was the oldest of them all, the language of the unicorns and other creatures of myth before them.
"You may begin," Knowing said, sitting back. He looked eager. Her classmates, on the other hand, were scowling at her. She'd seen those looks plenty of times before.
So she spoke, reciting the text in its original language. Mundus was tonal beyond even the most sensitive human tongues, requiring perfect pitch from its speakers and turning every conversation into a duet. To speak it properly, she had to sing. But Lucky didn't mind that—her voice sounded much nicer than it had on Earth.
"The knowing of magic was the knowing of ways,
and as the wise understood safety was found.
In friendship they found contentment,
making their world in joy to serve the endless years."
Lucky could make very little sense of the poem, but that wasn't why she'd picked it. It was considered one of the most technically difficult pieces of unicorn history. It required that the speaker understand every irregularity in the strange pony language, every special case, every exception. It also couldn't be understood by someone who spoke Eoch alone, though knowing one did help with the other.
The class stared, expressions of disbelief and confusion on their faces. A few could tell just how impressive her work had been, and their scowls had gotten darker. Yet as dramatic as the accomplishment seemed, Knowing Look only smiled, tapping one hoof on the floor. "Excellent job, Lucky. You may be seated." Yet as calm as his expression looked, she could see him smiling.
The remaining students in her class each took their turns. Most had more conventional presentations—paintings or musical performances, all from Equestrian or Crystal Empire history. Compared to what Lucky had done, they looked like the fumbling of children.
Well, they were the fumbling of children. Pony schools used cutie marks as a dividing line between years, and that had placed Lucky with many who were younger-looking than her. But she wasn't trying to show off, honest! She was just trying to use the opportunity to learn as much as possible for her real mission while also getting her final project done.
The ponies did not seem to think so, because when the class finally dismissed, she didn't have any group to join. She was left alone to study while the others ran off to play games or do other childish things. At least this time Knowing Look called her back, before she could make it to the door and join the crowd.
"I've been meaning to ask, Lucky..." he began, no longer trying nearly as hard to hide how pleased he was. Not when so many of the other students were already gone. "Have you considered what direction you intend to take your education once you graduate?" He glanced briefly at her flank, and the blank coat there. "Once you have your cutie mark, you'll be eligible to move on. Many of your colleagues have local goals in mind—trade schools and the like. Have you thought about it at all?"
"N-no," she admitted. Most ponies her age worked with parents or family members, apprenticing when they weren’t on campus to learn the ropes. But the Crystal Empire didn’t use a weather team, and Lightning Dust refused to take her to work. Whatever she was doing, she obviously didn’t want Lucky to learn it.
"I feared as much." He levitated a stack of papers onto the desk beside them, where she could see.
Lucky scanned the cover of the first one, enough to see that it was an admissions application to something called the "Royal Canterlot College."
"There are many ponies who can clear a sky, Lucky Break. So many of your pegasus colleagues speak of flying south to work for a weather team. But for all the ponies who can do that, only a few can recreate ‘The Knowing of Ways’ so perfectly with only a few days of study. There are centuries of history written in languages dead to us, heroes and villains and rulers with names lost before Equestria itself existed. Your talent might be exactly what the ponies in the Royal Canterlot College have been waiting for."
"I, uh..." Lucky shifted on her hooves, forcing herself to look away from the application. She was thrilled by the idea, adrenaline racing through her body. Yes, she had been created to serve the SPS, to translate the Equestrian language so that humans could form diplomatic ties with the aliens. But that project was done—all that remained to her now was getting it all down on paper. Write a book, teach a few classes, get her brain scanned, and then she'd be free to do whatever she wanted with her life.
On Earth, all things had been known. But here in Equestria, there were mysteries. A whole domain of history. Knowing Look sure knew how to interest her.
"I see what you're thinking," he said, levitating her saddlebags open and sliding the packet inside. "Just fill it out, okay? Bring it back, I'll take care of getting everything sent in. There's no guarantee the college will accept you. I know..." He looked around, making sure there were no other ponies in the room who might overhear. There weren't. "I know your family isn't well-connected, or wealthy. But the college doesn't require either one. Many of the best scholars come from humble backgrounds."
"Alright, Mr. Look. I'll... I'll fill it out." She didn't much like the idea of leaving so soon. She could get a cutie mark any day now, and once that happened... she was technically an adult. That was when many of the natives moved on from required education to their trades.
But that's assuming I can even get one. There was very little written about the phenomenon, as though any extensive research was considered taboo. Ponies could even get shy about it, rather like asking a human to tell stories of the experiences of their puberty.
"Good, good." Look retreated, gesturing to the open door. "That's all I ask. Applying is no guarantee you'll be accepted, but there's no reason not to try. You're out nothing but your time if your application is rejected. And if it is, there's always a weather team."
"Y-yeah." Lucky laughed, relaxing a little.
She made her way out of her classroom, down the halls of the school. There were only a few rooms here, one for each year. There was very little specialized training, little in the way of anything other than Socratic lecture halls.
Lucky herself belonged to the oldest year in the school, the one that held ponies right on the cusp of becoming adults, and those who had their cutie marks but hadn't yet moved on to a trade.
Colts and fillies galloped past her down the halls, giggling as they played. Some were playing familiar games, or games so close to those played by human children only the names set them apart. Some played with cards or carved figures, or dice. Some played on the fields outside the school, where sports like "hoofball" were common pastimes. Lucky joined those who sat quietly in the library to read, study, or play board games. She had done all three, but just now, she found herself somewhere isolated to sit and went to work filling out the application. By the time Dust arrived to pick her up, she'd already filled it out.
"Hey, squirt," Dust said from behind her, so suddenly she almost jumped.
"Hey!” Lucky grinned up at her. “Ready to take me to work with you?”
“Nope.” Lightning Dust sat down beside her, eyeing the application. "What's this?"
"Nothing!" Lucky pushed it hastily into her saddlebags. "Just something my teacher thought I should do, no big deal." She started packing up the rest of her supplies—stoppering the inkwell, stowing away the quill in its case to prevent it from breaking, and neatly sliding each of the books into place. She had the whole bookbag packed in about thirty seconds, then looked up with a grin. “I’m ready!”
"Well look at you." Dust ruffled her mane with one wing, grinning. "How long did that take you the first time?"
Lucky blushed, looking down. "Uh..."
"Yeah. That's exactly how long." She took off, lifting into the air in the middle of the library. Flying indoors was against the rules of course, but Dust didn't care. So long as she was with her, Lucky didn't care either. Of course, even a few months of lessons weren't enough to match the skills of a pony who had been flying their whole life.
Lucky had to gallop behind her towards the exit, flapping her wings furiously for ten meters or so before she managed to get the speed to take off. She managed to keep her wings in close, close enough that she wouldn't scrape along the side of the room and go tumbling out of the air. The doors on the front of the school weren't open, but Dust didn't seem to care. She moved her wings, and a blast of air slammed them open in front of them, letting them both zoom through them, past a few stunned-looking crystal ponies trundling their slow way down the school steps.
But Lucky didn't look back; she didn't really care to. The streets of the Crystal Empire were soon sinking away below her, as its many clouds and the handful of pegasus buildings on them grew closer and closer. They didn’t live up here--the cloud houses were expensive in the Crystal Empire, and new ones weren’t allowed to overshadow the city. But it was still a nice place to practice her flying.
She still couldn't keep up with Dust in her flying, but that didn't matter. She got faster every day, with Dust's help. By the time she was grown up, maybe she would be able to do all the amazing things that Dust could. And even if she couldn't... flying at all was a dream.
But there was one weight still heavy on her mind, one that wouldn't go away just because she went through with the ordinary routines of life with Lightning Dust. I’m fluent. I’ve just about finished writing the book about Eoch. When I’m done… When she was done, she’d either have to go back, or start lying in her reports and pretend she wasn’t. Lucky wasn’t sure which it would be.
* * *
The Sojourner was not like any other conventional aircraft James had ever flown in before. If anything, it was most like her old van, the one she'd lived in down by the river when she was in university. The Sojourner was a little like that, except that it was fifty meters long, covered in thin armor plates, and had a deck on top for the crew to walk along whenever they were airborne.
All it took was a pair of magnetic boots to make sure they weren't swept away (well two pairs, because pony bodies were stupid), and a pair of isolating headphones for her ears that would block out the sound of the eight gigantic rotors located at various points on the perimeter of the craft. Even with the isolation she could still kind of hear it, a dull roar in the back of her head.
Once they got underway, even Olivia came to the top deck, watching Equestria go by and listening as Karl and Dorothy patiently explained everything Martin had showed them. Martin herself was the only one who hadn't come up here to observe, which meant that James was alone. She rested near the edge of the railing, feeling the air blasting past her. Up here on the front of the vessel (or the front of the small, sheltered observation deck), she could almost feel like she could fly. The clouds beneath them really weren't that far away, and she yearned to join them, to swim down through the air with the wings trapped under her uniform.
Maybe when the translation team gets back she can show us how to fly as well as speak. James would include a request about flight in her next message, as soon as she got back below to type it out. If language could be taught by sending instructions and notes back for private practice, maybe flight could as well. Given how full of implants Olivia had made their bodies, it would have to be easier, right?
James hadn't been told what most of them were yet, but she knew through simple trial and error she was enormously strong—stronger than a human her size, and probably stronger than a pony as well.
I have to tell her about this ringworld thing. She should know how much danger we’re in. James looked back to where Olivia and the others were speaking. She could be listening to their conversation through her headset if she wanted--the only way to have any meaningful conversation in the air. But she didn’t care to listen just now, she’d already shut her’s off. Let the more scientifically-inclined explain just how serious it was they were living on a ring.
James turned away and walked back to the doors leading below decks. She stood in front of it for a few seconds, hurrying in before it shut behind her.
This was too complex to put into an email. The translator needed to know right now. As soon as the airlock shut behind her, James pulled her computation surface out of its pocket, setting it on the ground in front of her, then hung her headset on one of the waiting hooks. She wouldn’t need it again until she wanted to go back outside. “Computer, dictate a message to Translation Team.”
“Command accepted,” answered the computer. “What should the message say?”
“We have discovered mission critical information. Do you have time to video conference?” She waited until the little logo on the screen had stopped spinning.
“Message sent,” the computer replied. James put the tablet back into her pocket and made her way down the wide interior of the Sojourner. Even though it had ceilings the proper height for pony bodies, it still felt a little strange to her that the hallways would be so wide. Most aircraft were more cramped than this. It would be perfect if we were human, but we aren’t. Forerunner probably didn’t have pony-sized designs on file.
Martin had set herself up in the men’s living quarters, so James went all the way to the galley. There was no one inside, and not much in the way of cooking tools. Just a beverage dispenser, shelves of rations, and a hot-water machine to rehydrate it all. This would be junk food even on Earth.
James wasn’t sure how long she would have to wait. The airship itself moved enormously quickly, but they had a long distance to travel. So long as she gets back to me before we arrive, it’ll be fine. Once they arrived on their new island, Olivia would put them all to work and there would be no time to rest. Maybe not for weeks.
But she didn’t have to wait that long.
"New Message Received," the computation surface said.
"Sure," read the message. "Bedtime isn’t for another hour, and Dust went to pick up groceries. I've been looking forward to meeting whoever I've been talking to this last week. You're much nicer than Olivia."
"Establish video link," James instructed, though she could feel her stomach sink as she did it. James had a feeling about who she would be talking to on the other end. I’m the best translator in the system, I have to be. Why would the Forerunner settle for second best?
The screen flashed with a green "connecting" icon. A few seconds later and it resolved into a clear image. The inside of a charming little apartment, with wooden walls and old-fashioned furniture. The computation surface on the other end was sitting propped-up on a well-worn table. A pony was looking at her from the other side, a pony with a strikingly familiar face.
Olivia's face. Her coat was still yellow though, her mane long and flowing and styled with a few lengths of green and gold ribbon. The pony had been sitting in a raised chair, holding a collapsible acoustic guitar in her hooves and strumming it with her wings. She looked up at the screen, blushing a little, and dropped it. It fell with a metallic thump to the floor, and she sat up, propping her hooves up on the table to look at the camera.
"It worked!" she exclaimed, in a voice as high as Olivia's, but with a much friendlier sound to it. "I ordered the Forerunner to find a way to fix your age... you look like an adult mare! Err... hopefully that's what you're supposed to be."
"No," James admitted, ears flattening involuntarily to her head. "Unfortunately, not. We’re working on a way to get some male genetic samples. Hopefully nobody else after us will have to deal with this."
"That's good," the single member of the translation team said. "So, uh... I'm Dr. James Irwin." She said the names slowly, as though the words were unfamiliar in her mouth. "It's good to finally meet the one assigned to... teach language, you said? Who are you?"
"Dr. James Irwin," James replied.
There was a long, weighty silence. The pony on the other side looked down, her own ears flattening to her head. She fidgeted in her seat, opened her mouth to speak, shut it again. James waited until her words could sink in, not making things easy for her.
"Guess the Forerunner didn’t think I was coming back." Another long silence. "Well... in that case, why don't you just call me Lucky Break? It's the name the ponies use for me, and... it will keep us from getting confused."
"Sure," James answered. "Lucky Break." She was pretty sure she had butchered the pronunciation of the Eoch words, but she did her best. Her clone on the other end did not complain.
Not my clone. She's older than I am, even if she looks younger. I'm her clone. Or... we're both the clone of the same dead human from light-years away. "We shouldn't have this conversation right now. We have other things to worry about."
“Yeah,” Lucky said. “Your message sounded pretty worried. I’m not sure what the big deal could be… this planet is the perfect place for a colony! The natives are friendly, their civilization is close enough to human that we might be able to have diplomacy go on between us! They look weird, but that’s not a super big deal. I’m sure our biologists will eventually figure out what’s keeping human bodies from working. Once we get that sorted—”
James raised a hoof to silence her. It still took a few seconds to get through, with the communication delay. Eventually she did fall silent, watching skeptically. “What?”
“This isn’t a planet,” James said, slow and flat. “It’s a ringworld. A Dyson ring.”
Lucky Break laughed. She shook her whole body when she did, her wings twitching and her ears perking up. “Y-yeah, that’s funny,” she said. “I love my science fiction books too. But seriously, what’s the news? Unless you just wanted to talk. Meeting my twin is cool. Younger twin?”
“Focus,” James said, just a slight bit louder than conversational volume. “I am not joking. Computation Surface, send the composite satellite photo collage Martin made.” A little status icon appeared on the bottom of the screen. After a few seconds it vanished, and the light reflecting on Lucky’s face changed color.
She leaned in close to stare at the image, eyes getting visibly wider as she did so. “Th-this is… not a joke.”
“Nope,” James said. “I’m interested to know how you’ve been living with them for all this time without discovering such an important detail. Don’t they know they aren’t living on a planet?”
Lucky shook her head. “They’ve never talked about that! Most of the ponies don’t care about what’s beyond Equestria. It’s too dangerous to be somewhere Celestia and Luna aren’t protecting. Something to do with their religion…” she trailed off, looking away. “Come to think of it, every story I’ve ever heard of ponies leaving Equestria involved them never coming back. Except for a few of their national heroes, those mares can break any—”
“Hey,” James interrupted again, clearing her throat. “We don’t need every detail. I just wanted to make sure you knew about this… and knew what it implied.”
The filly looked thoughtful for a moment, still looking at the screen. “This formation couldn’t occur naturally?”
“No chance,” she answered. “Even if it wasn’t unstable, which it is, we’re absorbing much more energy than it takes to maintain the biosphere. We’re living on the exterior surface, and you’ll notice it isn’t cooking us alive. That means something is happening to the energy—something we can’t see. Not to mention there are satellites to give us day and night. Unless you think two regularly orbiting satellites giving us the perfect wavelengths for life as we know it just popped up.”
“Day and night come from satellites?” Lucky repeated, sounding more horrified than she had up until that point. “That would explain…” She shook her head vigorously. “Nah, couldn’t be.”
“Couldn’t what?”
Lucky lowered her head, ears flattening in embarrassment. “Well, the natives kinda live in a theocracy… a pretty secular one… but the ponies in charge of everything are supposed to control the sun and the moon. It’s probably nothing, but…”
“Hmm.” James frowned. “That isn’t as impossible. Probably still just part of their religion, though.”
Lucky looked up again. “Thanks for telling me this, me. Was there anything else I should know?”
“No,” James answered. “Not right now. I know I’m not in charge of you. But if you have time… you should ask the natives about this. Maybe there’s something in their history or their mythology that would explain who put them here. We don’t want the gardener to come back and find us here spoiling their Eden.”
“Yeah.” Lucky glanced over her shoulder, as the door made a rattling sound. Someone fumbling with the keys, no doubt. “Gotta go! If I learn anything, I’ll send a report!” She reached out with a hoof, and the screen went dark.
Despite everything, James’s last thought about the conversation had nothing to do with aliens. She was playing my guitar with her wings. I wonder if I can do that.