//------------------------------//
// 39 — How Deep Is It? 
// Story: If Wishes were Ponies . . . . 
// by tkepner 
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“S.A.S. Regimental Club.”

“Hello. Is the Colonel in? This is Sergeant Searle”

“I will see if he is engaged.” Castor waited for a minute or so for the Club’s Corporal to check, and deliver a phone if he was.

There was a loud click as the receiver was lifted. “Colonel Thiessen here.”

“Ah, Colonel? I was hoping you’d be in.”

“Have you concluded your appointment?”

“Actually, I am there right now, sir. Number Eleven Magnolia Road, Little Whinging.”

“Indeed.”

“Uh-huh, it’s much more than what we thought. Could you come out here? It’s rather important.”

“Is it now?” He could hear the doubt and annoyance in the man’s voice.

“Yes, sir. These people are, well, I can say without fear of exaggeration, that this is a matter of national security . . . and the Foreign Office.”

He heard a heavy sigh.

“And before you ask, yes. Yes, I’m sober. Very sober. Much more so than I want to be, if you want to know the truth.

“And what is it that is so important?”

It was his turn to sigh. “If I tried to tell you, you’d think I had been drinking . . . I can assure you that the Prime Minister and the Queen will have to be briefed. And it involves an Ambassador from a foreign country.”

“Is that so?” came the reserved response.

“You can have my pension if you think I’m wrong.”

“If this indeed is a matter of national security . . .”

“It is. Very, very, much so, sir.”

“Then I will need to make a few phone calls and bring some others with me.”

He turned and asked, “Can he bring some people with him?”

The Princess looked at her friends and shrugged. “Sure,” she looked around the room and smiled, “Just remember, we aren’t exactly in a lecture hall here.”

He turned to face the staircase again. “Yes, bring whom you want, but not too many, we are in a small-house sitting-room . . . and bring cameras. Lots of cameras.”

“Cameras. For evidence, I assume? It’ll be about two hours.”

“That’s correct. About two hours? . . . See you then.” He hung up and turned to face them again.

“He has to make a few phone calls, and then he’ll be right over. He’s in London, so it’ll take about two hours for him to get here. Mind if I bring P.C. Havers up to speed?”

“No. No, I don’t mind at all — why don’t you invite her in?” the Princess suggested.

He stepped outside, Miss Arrow just behind him. “Hey, P.C. Havers. I’m just checking in. This is so far out of our jurisdiction, it’s not funny. I used the phone inside to kick it upstairs. Someone will be here in about two hours.”

He turned and went back inside, Miss Arrow again following him. Seeing their questioning looks, he said, “She wouldn’t come in, anyway. Standard Operating Procedure. It might be a trap.”

They all nodded in understanding. “That’s too bad,” said the Princess. She sighed, “But I understand the reasoning. That would be something Chrysalis would do.” She looked up at him. “Set a trap, I mean. Fortunately, we have no interest in setting traps.” The little purple pony began trotting in place. “There is just so much to learn!” She spun in place.

The flying one, Lady Dash, snickered, “Don’t let her in your national Library, we’d never get her out of it!”

The orange one, Lady Jack, he thought, laughed and said, “She’s already figure’d out it would take a hunerd and fourteen years to read all yer books!” She paused, then muttered, “And I wouldn’t put it past her to try.”

The Princess stopped trotting and stomped her hoof. “Girls, that’s over twenty times the number of books in the Royal Canterlot Library! And they publish more books in a week than we do in a year!”

Lady Rarity said, “Twilight, you’ve already shipped home more books than the sociologists can read in a year!”

Lady Dash laughed again, “Yeah, I thought that bookstore manager was gonna pee his pants when you gave him that order for five thousand books. And then paid him in bits in advance.”

“But he was such a gentlestallion, delivering them to us himself when they arrived,” said Lady Rarity approvingly.

Lady Dash snorted, “And got an order for another thousand books for his trouble!”

Castor stared at them. This was terrible. They had been here for weeks and were basically looting the human world’s knowledge. Sure, they were paying for everything, but they now had far more intelligence on the humans than the humans could possibly get in return in years!

He cleared his throat. “If you don’t mind my asking, just how advanced are you, compared to us?”

They stopped their arguing over whether or not the Princess was too enthusiastic about books and turned back to him. He noticed that Prince Blood was now watching him instead of staring off into the distance.

The Princess frowned. “Well, in some areas we are clearly far ahead of you — while you know far more about viruses and bacteria and their transmission, we can cure most diseases without difficulty. Cancer, which seems to be a big issue for you, is a simple potion-cure if we can catch it early enough.” She sighed, “Although we do still lose a pony to it every now and then. We can regrow lost limbs, as well. If we can get someone to a healer fast enough, we can almost always save them, no matter what their affliction.” She smiled proudly. “It helps that we’re very durable. From what we’ve seen on your telly, you people are extremely fragile. Crashes that would leave one of us slightly dazed seem to kill you outright.”

She started trotting in place again, “However, your advances in in vitreo fertilization are simply stunning! And operating on foetuses to fix problems before birth? Astounding!”

She sighed and stood still. “On the other hoof, militarily, we are far behind you. Most of our guards train with spears and crossbows.” She smiled. “We do have fireworks, but not rockets, rifles, or cannons. We’ve never needed anything more advanced to deal with our enemies, so we never pushed any further.” She smirked. “In fact, I know of one recent war that was settled by a pie fight.” She shuddered. “I cannot imagine needing something as terrible as one of your nuclear weapons.”

He stared at her incredulously. “A pie fight?” he repeated weakly. Was she kidding him?

She nodded. “And we do have a railroad system. It’s not as extensive as yours, and we use steam engines. As for flight, well, one-third of our population flies, so it has never really been an issue. I do have a balloon I use sometimes, though. And there are a few blimps in commercial use. Some nobles use them as air-going yachts, too. But we have nothing like your commercial jets.” She hummed for a moment. “We’ve just never seen the need for that much speed, I guess.”

“Jets, phht,” Lady Dash said disparagingly. “I’m the fastest pegasus in Equestria.” She flew up almost into his face. “I can clear a sky of clouds in ten seconds, flat!”

“Clouds,” he repeated, bewildered, “Ten seconds?”

“Oh, yes,” the Princess continued, “We control almost all the weather, with only occasional freak storms coming in from the Everfree Forest or the oceans.” She frowned as she looked over at the curtained windows. “That’s actually one of the hardest things for us to get used to here — the weather here is so random. We would never allow a tornado to do so much damage.” She shuddered. “And I can’t remember the last time I heard of a rainstorm causing a flood. We would disperse such a storm long before it endangered any lives.” She looked over and up at Dash, who was hovering just below the ceiling. “We’ll be doing the Running of the Leaves to usher in Fall in a few weeks.”

Lady Dash zoomed over to hover in front of Lady Jack. “I’m gonna beat you this year, just you wait!”

Apple Jack rolled her eyes. “You’all keep telling yerself that, honey.”

Rainbow Dash just glared at her.

“And then there’s quantum physics,” Twilight said, ignoring the two squabbling ponies. Lady Dash had landed and the two were now shouldering each other back and forth like a couple rugby rivals, as the Prince watched disapprovingly. “It sounds remarkably similar to our theories. The String theory proposed by your scientists is quite interesting and would explain some things that we’ve been puzzling over the last hundred years. I think that if we cooperate we might be able to pull together a complete universal theory of everything that will fit all the observational evidence we have.”

“And we’ve confirmed the multi-world theory, as well as time-travel.” She shuddered. “Time travel is just . . .  too . . . paradoxical.”

He knew his mouth was hanging open. Militarily, they were at the bow-and-arrow era, yet their medicine out-stripped the dreams of almost every doctor in the world, and they had an understanding of quantum theory that only the most highly-developed modern countries could afford to research. Plus, they could CONTROL THE BLOODY WEATHER! A bloody deep rabbit-hole, indeed!


۸- ̰ -۸


“So, back in your home world, you’re mostly herbivories and only pegasi eat meat with any regularity?”

“That’s correct,” said Princess Twilight Sparkle.

Castor had heard of horses eating meat on occasion, but it was still a surprise to hear that these . . . ponies . . . did so, too. So, he supposed, it shouldn’t be all that outrageous to hear that while they were in their human forms, they also ate meat. They might not be completely comfortable, emotionally, doing so, but they did do it. Then again, there had been a few dishes served to him when he was overseas with the Sport and Social that he would rather not think about.

He glanced down at the two pony heads lying on his thighs. He wasn’t exactly sure how it had happened.

The two ponies had been in the midst of their continuing shoving match — to Prince Blood’s obvious disdain and disgust — when they stumbled over to his chair. Reflexively, as with a big dog, he had reached out to push them away. By accident, he had done what he would have done with any friendly large dog, He had started scratching one of them, Dash, he thought, behind the ear, as a distraction.

Her eyes had gone wide and she had immediately leaned into it. He had been surprised that she hadn’t started purring. Lady Jack had watched, puzzled, until Lady Dash had groaned and said, “Oh Celestia! This is fabulous.” And twisted her head so he could scratch the other ear.

A second later, he was using both hands. He had gone down the back of their necks, in their manes, to much moaning and wriggling in place. And startled looks from the Princess and Lady Rarity. When he started scratching at the base of Dash’s wings, he had thought she was going to melt to the floor. Followed, a second later, by her murmured, “Marry me!”

Which had led to his current predicament. Trapped in his chair by two ponies who weighed as much as he did. He would have liked a refill on his tea, but every time he stopped massaging an ear, the owner of said ear would growl. And open one eye to glare at him. Currently, the orange one had him scratching her back just below her shoulder blades.

Meanwhile, he had time to reflect that the ponies didn’t need high-tech weapons to conquer humanity. With those soulful eyes, fluffy coats, and overall adorable appearance, people would walk into their cages without complaint, all the while cooing at how adorable and cute their captors were. Of course, the humans could retaliate by refusing to give tummy rubs and ear scratches unless the ponies capitulated, in turn. It would be a Mexican Standoff — or would that be a stalemate? — situation.

A woman walked up behind Miss Arrow and whispered in her ear. Miss Arrow then went to the Princess said something. Princess Twilight nodded and looked over at the Detective Inspector. “Your friends should be here in a few moments.” She gave him a tight smile. “They seem to have brought reinforcements, who are waiting just outside the neighbourhood.”

He nodded slowly. “I kind of expected that.”

She gave him a wry smile. “I suppose I did too.”

“Excuse me, Ladies, but I’m needed,” he said looking down at his two lap-weights.

“Aww,” Lady Dash said disappointedly, “Do you have to? You can wait a few more minutes . . . .”

Lady Jack just sighed deeply and said, “Come on, Dash, might as well change back to people again.” Suiting actions to words, he had a young woman leaning against his legs. Unfortunately, he now had his hand very inappropriately partway down the back of her dress. He jerked his hand back, and felt his face turn hot as he blushed. She gave him a questioning look, clearly not understanding the impropriety of where he had had his hand.

He hoped no one ever mentioned it to his wife — he doubted she would be as blasé about the incident. She was rather territorial.

Dash sighed in turn and slowly straightened before turning back into a person, as well. “Oh,” she said contentedly, “That was wonderful! Twi, you have to hire one of these guys as official ear-scratcher at the palace!” She sighed again.

“Y’all mean wing scratcher, don’t ya?” snarked her friend.

Castor blinked as he watched Lady Dash turn a bright red.

“Hay,” she said in embarrassment, “it was nothing like that!”

Lady Applejack snickered, “You keep tellin’ yerself that, honey.” In a softer undertone that only the three of them could hear, she added, “I heard you propose, there, sugarcube!”

Dash flushed an even darker shade of red that began to creep down her chest and out from under the short sleeves of her dress.

Castor gave them both a wide-eyed look, then stood. “Well,” he said, then cleared his throat, “I should probably meet them outside. It might be a good move to open the curtains, as well.” He headed for the front door, Miss Arrow behind him. 

When he glanced back inside as he stepped outside, he saw a guard taking her previous position. When he looked back at his car at the curb, he saw a man leaning casually against the side of the house across the street, a woman beside the house to the left, and another standing at the path into the forest. It looked like the Equestrians had called in a few reinforcements of their own. Or decided to let him see the ones they had had already in position.

He had to be careful. They were cute and adorable, but clearly the top predators of their world — despite looking and acting like a prey species — and therefore must be dangerous in their own way.

He heard an excited babble of voices from the sitting-room as Miss Arrow closed the front door behind them.

The Landrover that pulled up behind his car fairly screamed that oxy-moron, Military Intelligence, at him. Probably M.I. 5. However, because this involved a possible ambassador, it might be M.I. 6. Maybe both.

The Colonel had some high friends indeed. And they had actually listened, for once!

Four people climbed out of the Landrover, one of them festooned with cameras. The Colonel had taken his suggestion to heart, Castor was pleased to see. He met them half-way down the garage drive.

“This had better be good,” the Colonel half-growled.

Castor gave him a weak smile. “Good afternoon, Colonel, gentlemen,” he said. “Before we go any further I must say that my radio link to my associate, P.C. Havers, cut out the moment I stepped inside the door. So, if any of you have transmitters, they will fail.” He gave them a moment to consider that. And the listeners on the other end to finish cursing. “I’ve asked them to keep the curtains open.” They all looked over to the front windows were they saw the five women looking back at them, and waving when they saw the men looking at them. Castor noticed that Miss Arrow, by the front door, had partially turned to look into the forest at the end of the street. Which just so happened to keep an ear in their direction, He half-smiled to himself. She would have to have exceptional hearing to learn anything. He faced the Colonel, again. “And they told me you were almost here when you drove into the estate.”

That made the newcomers exchange looks.

“With reinforcements.”

The looks exchanged were a bit more alarmed.

“Here’s the problem. These people are aliens. As in, not from our world.” He ignored the mild snort of disbelief from one of the two men he had marked as M.I. agents. The other merely rolled his eyes and stared at him.

“We don’t want to cock this up, we’ll only have one chance at it, I’m sure. They can prove it, and did to me.” He looked at the man with the cameras. “Do you have a video camera?”

The man nodded.

“Get it out and get it going.” He looked at the Colonel, who had raised his eyebrows. “Trust me, you’ll want a full record of this.”

He waited for the man to get the camera running. “They want to establish an Embassy with us. That’s why they invited me to meet them. I’ll let them explain the rest.” He turned and led the small group to the house.

Miss Arrow opened the door for them and ushered them inside.

“Your Highnesses, Ladies,” Castor said as soon as they were in the sitting-room. He turned to the Colonel. “May I present Colonel Jayson Thiessen, Retired. Colonel,” He turned back to the Equestrians. “I would like to introduce Her Royal Highness Twilight Sparkle, His Highness Blue Blood, Lady Rarity, Lady Apple Jack, and Lady Rainbow Dash. And this gentleman is their solicitor, Lin Yueshi.”

The Colonel gave him a long look, then turned to the waiting Equestrians and bobbed his head in an abbreviated bow. “Your Highnesses, Ladies, it is a pleasure to meet you. These three gentlemen with me are Lewis Carroll, John Tenniel, and Charles Dodgson.” Each gave a similar bob of their head as they were named, murmuring cordial greetings.

John had his video camera held in one hand, running, and was glancing occasionally at the tiny display turned to one side.

“Your Highness, I think we should first demonstrate that you really are not natives to this world,” Castor suggested to Princess Twilight.

“Oh! Me! Me!” shouted Lady Dash leaping to her feet.

They all noticed Prince Blood rolling his eyes and sighing deeply, Princess Sparkle face-palming, and the others all shaking their heads.

The Princess nodded, “Yes, Dash, go ahead,” she said with an annoyed sigh.

“YES!” shouted Dash jumping up and transforming back into her native form in mid-air. She swung around to face the astonished newcomers. “Bet you didn’t expect that, did ya?”

She laughed. “It’s me — Rainbow Dash! The fastest pegasus in Equestria!” She zipped around the room almost too fast to see, banking around the walls like those motorcycle daredevils who race on horizontal tracks, as Castor had once seen on the news. How she missed clipping one of them with her wings as she did so, he couldn’t figure out. He shook his head. He had seen some people with massive egos, but this pony would give them a real run for their money.

The newcomers couldn’t take their eyes off of her as the Colonel muttered, “They’re flying horses?”

Castor cleared his throat and, speaking softly, said, “Uh, no, sir. Only some of them are flying ponies. The rest are either regular ponies or unicorns.” The Colonel was smart enough to catch his emphasis.

The Colonel gave him a sharp look, as did Carroll and Dodgson. Tenniel was keeping the camera focused on the pegasus. “Unicorns?” Their expressions ranged from a controlled blank to surprise, and even a bit of fear. But they were professionals and kept themselves under control.

“Yes sir, and Princess Sparkle has both a horn and wings. She calls herself an alicorn. She said there are only four of them in her world,” Searle concluded, still in an undertone.

The next half hour was spent with the Princess explaining how they had gotten here, how they had tried to present diplomatic papers, and what they hoped the humans could do for them today. And posing for pictures for Tenniel, both with and without the humans. And both as humans and ponies.

Castor was sure that it wasn’t until the others had actually touched the ponies — Lady Dash had insisted they scratch her ears — that they began to believe it was all real.

The Colonel sat with his elbows on his knees — three “aliens” had brought in additional chairs from the dining room. He was thinking as he watched the four ponies sit and talk the two intelligence agents while Prince Blood watched them disapprovingly and Tenniel filmed them.

“Can you show us this portal?” he finally said.

Princess Sparkle looked over at him. “Why, certainly.” She looked over at Miss Arrow, who stepped back into the hall for a moment. No doubt to pass the word so nobody . . . no pony . . . was caught unawares, Castor figured.

“Come along girls,” she said, transforming back to human. “You, too, Blueblood.”

With the heartfelt sigh of someone from whom much has been demanded and no recognition given for his efforts, the man stood and waited patiently, leaning ever so slightly on his cane. His expression of boredom seemed to be his default expression. He hadn’t smiled or done anything else except frown and roll his eyes the entire time Castor had been watching today.

The Princess stepped past them and out the door held open by Miss Arrow. The other aliens followed her. The humans came last. Tenniel said, “Could you give me a moment to drop off the exposed film cartridges and pick up new?”

“Hurry,” instructed the Colonel.

The man almost ran to the car and popped open the back door to rummage in a bag inside. The Equestians, stopped and watched intently. He looked up at them and asked, “Uh, you don’t mind if someone picks these up and develops the film?” He held up a small bag.

The Princess shook her head.

“Thanks,” he said with a broad smile. He shoved more film cartridges into his pockets, then set the bag on top of the car and closed the door. “They’ll be waiting back at both your offices,” he half-whispered to the two M.I. agents as they caught up with him.

Searle was amazed at how much the path across the street changed in a few short meters. Abruptly there was a wooden deck, barely ankle high above the dirt and with waist-high railings, but looking as if it had been there for years. The deck had the most complete camouflaging coat he had ever seen. Only when you were within couple of feet did you even notice it. If he hadn’t seen the aliens stepping up onto it, he might even have tripped on it. The man and woman standing to either side of the deck as they passed showed him he hadn’t been imaging things yesterday when he thought he had seen someone.

He knew they were close when they entered a depression and the trees spread out a bit as grass carpeted the ground instead of the normal forest debris. He doubted even the most sophisticated examination of a high-altitude picture of the area would reveal anything different from the rest of the forest. Thermal imaging should find the decking, though, as it was certainly a different temperature from the ground. Especially as wood cooled off at a different rate than the forest floor in the night.

The tent, when it came into sight, was large, expedition-sized, and blended in perfectly with the forest. It was easily six by ten meters. He saw that several trees went straight through its roof. He wondered how they had managed to do that without destroying the roof lines. Or having any cuts or zippers through the fabric that he could see.

Standing to either side of the tent’s entrance was another set of guards watching them closely as they approached. Castor took several long looks at the surrounding area. He made sure to point out to the Colonel the, no-doubt, artificially placed blockades that protected the tent from all approaches except this one.

The inside had a wooden deck floor, a continuation and expansion of the decking from outside. The front half was a single open area of about six-by-five meters, with a table to either side. The roof of the tent was translucent, making the inside of the tent extremely well-lit. There were a dozen men and women standing at attention beside the tables, watching them. Oddly, there seemed to be three times as many women as men.

He heard Princess Sparkle sigh. She said, “At ease.” The soldiers relaxed only slightly, keeping their eyes on the humans. There were no weapons of any kind in sight.

Dividing the tent in half was a cloth wall with three canvas door-flaps spaced equidistant across it.

Princess Sparkle turned to them. “This is only temporary until we get the ambassadorial papers, then we’ll start building a more permanent facility.” She pointed at the middle door-flap. “That leads to the portal itself.” She pointed to the right, “That one leads to the male’s changing room.” She pointed to the other. “And that leads to the female changing room.” 

She stopped and looked at them. “We are ponies. We don’t normally wear clothes except as decoration. When we go through the portal, it changes us to our normal selves. Which means, if we’re wearing clothes as people and go through it, the clothes would get dirty, mussed, and ripped up on the other side because of our smaller size as we tried to move around in them. Not to mention the trouble to take them off and put them back on without the assistance of hands. And trying to wear the clothes for this side on the other before coming through? We have the same problems. So we come through and then get dressed. Thus, the changing rooms.”

She looked at her friends. “Dash? Would you like to demonstrate?”

The young woman darted through the wrong door, causing the Princess to sigh. She went to open the centre flap, but one of the soldiers hurriedly ran over and opened it for her. She rolled her eyes, and waved the men forward.

The hallway was about a meter-and-a-half wide, he saw as they entered it. The Princess followed behind them. The end of the hallway was blocked by the tree, which had a small sign suspended against it and hanging from the hallway walls.

Halfway down the hallway, he could see two more door-flaps, one on either side.

Lady Dash came through the one on the right. She waved at them, then turned and jauntily walked straight into the tree. And disappeared.


۸- ̰ -۸