//------------------------------// // Apparatus // Story: The Velocity of Blood // by the dobermans //------------------------------// “What do you mean, you don’t know the purity?” Twilight leaned over the counter, muzzle-to-muzzle with a droopy-eared stallion who had either forgotten or not bothered to doff his pajamas for the day. Spike was next to her, drumming his claws on the glass display of powders, funnels, retorts, preservation jars, and twisted tubing of obscure purpose. His scowl matched Twilight’s grim expression. “That information isn’t provided by the manufacturer, Princess. All the saltpeter we sell here at Pestle Dust’s Apothecary is sent to us directly from Blast Faster Mining, no questions asked.” “So can’t you measure it yourself?” demanded Twilight. She pushed her checklist into his face in an angry purple flare of magic. “Right there. Top line.” The shopkeeper peeled the scroll off of his snout. “Zero parts per billion, all non-essential elements,” he read, lingering on the words to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. He chuckled and gave it back to her. “I’m serious,” grumbled Twilight. “There are no current means of measuring the purity to, uh—” he gestured at the checklist “—these frankly absurd specifications.” Twilight tapped her hoof on the counter just hard enough to rattle the rack of tweezers on display next to the register. “How is that possible? I mean, firework shows are fairly common here in Equestria, wouldn’t you say? Somepony must have at least asked the question!” “I don’t know what to tell you, Your Highness. Purity must not be important for fireworks. As a matter of fact, aren’t most of those magical nowadays? No pony around here’s bought saltpeter for fireworks in … well, no pony ever has!” “Well isn’t that just so convenient?” Twilight growled. Pestle Dust tightened his nightcap. “Look, Princess Twilight, with all due respect, I have some, uh, important business I have to attend to. Do you want to buy anything or not?” Twilight glared at him until he started to fidget. Satisfied, she scanned the display case. “I’ll take a pouch of the saltpeter—and whatever else happens to be contaminating it—along with a sack of that, two chunks of that, and that. No, the longer one. Better accuracy. How much?” “Just a second …” Pestle Dust murmured, punching the buttons on his register. “Total comes to forty-five bits. Would you like a receipt?” Twilight counted out her coins and dropped them on the counter. “No thanks. Spike, please put these in my saddlebag. We’re done here.” Spike swept the items into the crook of his arm. When he was finished placing them one by one into Twilight’s bag, he gave a smirking Pestle Dust a parting sneer and followed Twilight outside. As soon as they were out of earshot of the shop, Spike jogged up ahead so she could hear him over the clatter of the equipment. “Couldn’t you just look the purity up in a book?” he asked. “Like you said to sleepy-head back there, somepony must have looked into it before.” Twilight sighed. It was a few moments before she answered. “They did, but I wouldn’t trust the source any further than I could fly right now with all of these supplies weighing me down. The one study I could find was performed by Flim and Flam’s Kick Back and Relax Good Science Consultation Agency. Guess who funded it?” “Uh … I dunno. Does it matter?” “Yes, it does. Blast Faster Mining. They had a huge contract with Appleloosan Pies and Turnovers to provide it as a preservative: apple pies don’t hold up well in the desert, and earth ponies aren’t exactly keen on finding magical solutions to their problems.” “So what happened?” asked Spike. “Oh, Blast Faster got what they wanted. Got the OK from the Food and Health Authority of Equestria. They retracted their publication a year later, but of course nopony read it. Nopony ever reads the retractions.” “That doesn’t sound fair," Spike grumped. "Well, what if something goes wrong? What if there’s something in the saltpeter making ponies sick?” “Then they get sick. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it happens.” They were nearing Town Hall. More ponies were appearing on the streets, going about their daily business. Far off out of sight, the school bell droned its brassy note to mark the hour. Junebug and Daisy waved at Twilight from the doorway of Quills and Sofas. “This isn’t good, Spike,” said Twilight through the smile she sent the cheerful mares. She waved back to them. “Impurities in the powder will affect the enthalpy of reaction. The rate of expansion. The pressure. Think of the error all of that additional energy will introduce! You can have the best plan in the world, but it’s meaningless unless you test it properly.” She stopped waving and put her hooftip to her mouth to chew on it instead. “What am I going to do?” Spike twiddled his claws at Junebug and Daisy before diving back into Twilight’s bag. “Maybe the checklist has something?” he offered. He retrieved the scroll from the jumble of supplies and began poring over the lines of fluid, numbered script. “I’m sorry, Twi. I don’t see anything else about powder purity. I can’t even understand half the items on here. Maybe you should take it. You know, jog the old memory? Light the old bulb?” He nudged her ribs with his elbow. “OK fine. Gimme that.” The parchment glowed purple and jumped out of Spike's paws to hang in front of Twilight’s eyes. “We’ve got most of the items for the projector. We’ll need a carpenter’s help for the positioner. I’m thinking Pestle Dust’s sister, Balsam. She and I go way back. We’ll have to get the lumber delivered to the castle, though, and that still doesn’t resolve the purity issue, and hey! Put that back!” Spike had withdrawn a long flared tube from Twilight’s bag and was peering through it at a pegasus gliding overhead. When he realized there were no lenses, he put it to his lips and blew a raspberry. “What's this? Some kind of telescope, or trombone?” “No, Spike, that’s a blunder—” “A blunder? Like a mistake?” he laughed, twirling the tube in his little paws. “Are you saying we’re making a mistake?” He trumpeted out another raspberry. “Heh heh.” There was a giggle from across the street. “No!” Twilight shouted. She planted her hooves and snorted hot puffs of vapor. “You’re not taking this seriously! This is not a mistake! This is my destiny!” She slammed her hoof on the ground. “This is the answer!” Spike threw his paws up in surrender. “Sorry, just trying to lighten the mood. I didn’t mean to be careless. I won’t touch anything else. Promise.” He slid the tube back into Twilight’s saddlebag. Twilight sat down and rubbed at the base of her wing. “I’m … I’m sorry. I was just worried that … you’d drop it, and that was the last one Pestle Dust had. If there are any dings or dents, it would introduce nonlinear terms to the friction calculation, and the whole study would be in jeopardy.” For a while she was quiet, her eyes searching the air between them. Her lips worked like they did when she was running through to the end of a long, difficult equation. When somepony spilled a basket of apples at the grocery stand next to them, she jumped. Spike touched her shoulder. “Hey,” he said, “why don’t we go find something to eat? There’s nothing that can’t be figured out over lunch, especially when the one doing the figuring is Twilight Sparkle.” He gave her coat a gentle scratch and waited. Twilight sighed again, coming back from her private calculations. She smiled down at him. “That sounds like a great idea. I don’t think we have time for a full lunch, given that we’re in the middle of a field expedition, so how about a smoothie?” “Sounds good to me. I’ll just imagine it’s molten gems,” Spike replied, rubbing his belly. “Did you know there’s not much difference in flavor between blueberries and what we dragons like to call, ‘Lava de Sapphire’?” They walked out into the circle surrounding Town Hall and crossed to the smoothie cart. A waitress pranced down the steps of the little shop, took their orders, and bowed low to Twilight as she backpedaled inside. It was only a few minutes before she returned, carrying a tray with two brimming, frosty glasses. Twilight took their drinks and rested her forelegs on their table, letting the late morning breeze play with her mane. “Fashioning the positioner won’t be much of a challenge, really. Though it’ll have to be level.” She nipped the slice of banana floating at the top of her smoothie and took a sip. “Mmm. It’s arrogant to take even the most minor of details for granted, not to mention scientifically dangerous. To think, there was a time when ponies didn’t even know how to build houses. They just ran around in herds, no way to keep the weather off their backs, let alone control it.” “But then they figured out they could live inside trees, or chop them down and build them into whatever they needed! I bet whoever came up with that idea was a super smart problem solver like you,” Spike cheered, beaming up at her with a blueberry cream moustache. Twilight chuckled. “Or, ‘whoever’ saw beavers doing it and just copied them.” She drained half her glass. “And the problem didn’t get solved. It just moved somewhere else.” “What do you mean? Trees grow back. They don’t have feelings. No harm, no foul.” Twilight pushed her glass to the side and cleared her throat. “I’m getting another story, aren’t I?” mumbled Spike. “Long ago,” Twilight began, “the tribe of Arimaspi flourished in the south. They were giants, and great inventors. Because of their size, they needed a material that could carry their weight for many years without breaking. So they devised a way to mix gold with sulfur, charcoal, and—” she paused, her face wrinkled in thought “—and a few other things I can’t remember off the top of my head. There might have been some alchemical magic involved. Anyway, their empire grew, spreading even to Horseshoe Bay and the Celestial Sea. Things were going great for them until the obvious happened.” “The obvious?” “Yes, the obvious. They ran out of gold. They mined every last nugget from the Badlands, which by the way is why they look like one giant slag pit. So they went to war, pillaging and robbing every goblet, necklace and statue they could find from the neighboring kingdoms. But it turns out you can’t fight wars when your cities are crumbling.” “So what happened?” “They suffered defeat after defeat after defeat! They had everything taken away from them! Everything they had worked so hard for.” Spike tapped his chin. “Sounds like they just replaced one problem with a bigger one.” “That they did, Spike. That they did. But it’s not surprising, really. Nature ran its course. Entropy increased. It has to. That’s the only real progress that’s ever made.” “You lost me.” Twilight straightened in her seat, launching into full lecture mode. “The equine body is made up of nothing more than proteins, water and calcium. Same as dragons. Maybe a few trace elements here and there. Just a self-correcting set of chemical reactions. That’s all we are.” “That’s not true!” Spike huffed. “I’m a dragon, not some protein shake!” He gave his smoothie an angry lick. “I understand your confusion, Spike, but think about it. Every time you take a breath, you intake oxygen and excrete carbon dioxide, same as a motor, or a burning tar pit back where you’re from. You eat and drink, and you grow. Are there any other factors in the equation?” “Well yeah! I’ve got a brain. I learn things. Maybe not as fast as you and Starlight, but…” “Your brain is growing too,” Twilight interrupted, holding up a hoof, “no doubt about it. It’s a mass of neurons, interconnecting and multiplying in reactions of their own.” Spike folded his arms. “If you say so.” “I do say so,” Twilight replied, nodding. “As the reactions take place, whether they’re inside our bodies, or burning tar pits, or the gold-melting cauldrons of the Arimaspi, the energy they release spreads out everywhere it can, like smoke swirls and spreads out into the air when you blow a candle out. And you can’t get it back. It never comes back. That’s entropy. The only progress we can make.” She paused, giving her student time to absorb the lesson. “Anything else you can imagine?” Spike gave her half a shrug and looked down. “Well, there’s magic, and … uh … our souls … what makes you, you and me, me. Everypony knows that, right?” Twilight wiped her mouth, and crumpled the white paper napkin into her glass. It didn’t seem to Spike that she was going to say anything more. He hopped out of his seat and stretched. “I don’t buy it, Twilight. But either way, I guess we have to keep our motors running.” Twilight rose too, dropping three golden bits onto the table while hefting her heavy load onto her back. “That’s what Princess Celestia would say.” Spike was already ahead of her, skipping out into the circle. “Cool! So does that mean I get to have ice cream when we get home?” Twilight smiled as they started toward Balsam Dust’s Lumber Depot. “Sure Spike. Any flavor you want.”