//------------------------------// // Chapter 32: Night Moves // Story: Onto the Pony Planet // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Onto the Pony Planet Chapter 32: Night Moves Admiral Biscuit As soon as Lavender Sunrise had returned to Canterlot, wheels had quickly been set into motion, and another diplomatic meeting was called. It was late for this kind of meeting, but not the latest that such a meeting had been called. Sometimes there were diplomatic crises, and sleep had to be sacrificed. Fortunately, this was not a crisis, so the mood around the table was jovial. Princess Celestia's seat was vacant. All those present would have preferred that she be there, but it was not unusual for her to miss meetings. She had lots of things to do, which was why she trusted them to make decisions in her stead. As such, Hickory Hocks was in charge of the meeting, and any decision he endorsed would be considered the consensus of the group. “We've already talked about this in broad terms,” he reminded them all. “But now that the embassy is official, it's time to start scheduling meetings at the embassy.” “We need a proper representative at the embassy,” Corduroy muttered. “Crackers, why didn't we think of that?” “Watch your language,” Double Talk admonished. “We do have a representative—Lyra Heartstrings.” “She's new—she doesn't know protocol.” Old Hickory wiggled his eyebrows. “She has the backing of Princess Celestia, the Council, and of course Ambassador Dale. That's all she needs. Embassy protocol is for her to decide, and we must do our part to advance her agenda. You know that. “Our first priority is to schedule a meeting with the minotaurs. I'd like to get that done as quickly as possible, as a sign of respect for them.” “Hold on, who do we have that retired recently? We could send—” “Ambassador Gold Lily, and we'll only do that if we’re asked. Our first action now that everything is official should not be to second-guess Lyra’s abilities.” Old Hickory pounded his hoof on the table to accentuate his pronouncement. “Minotaurs are easy. She knows minotaurs—shared a room with one in Canterlot, you know. And they're not going to be very demanding on the first visit. Brash, loud, yes; that's how they always are. But they're not going to stand on protocol.” “They're not going to demand her head on a pike.” “Exactly.” He nodded at Double Talk. “They'll spend the first meeting feeling her out and Dale, too; get an idea what they can ask for. What kind of agreement can be made. They'll accept provisional agreements, 'I don't knows' and so forth. They won't be upset if they have to take breaks to discuss things in the native language—humanish, isn’t it?—they're used to all that. Half of them are business bulls, and that's how things work in business for them. Lots of talk and then some action. “What's really going to matter to them, and what's going to get them firmly on our side, is that they'll be first. No matter what deals get made or not after that, they'll still have been first.” “We still need to telegram her so that they know they're coming,” Double Talk said. “You can't just have ambassadors show up unannounced. How is their domestic staff? Is that up to par?” “I don't know,” Old Hickory admitted. “They have some local ponies working in the house. I'm sure if they need more, we can get more. Plenty of ponies work in the castle, after all.” “They'd have to go by train, so we'd have to plan around that. So much easier with embassies in Canterlot. And what about food for the minotaurs?” Old Hickory waved his hoof dismissively. “Minotaurs can eat the same things we can, that's not a problem. Most of them have localized tastes anyway, what with all their trading and migrating.” “It'd be a good test-run,” Double Talk admitted. “Practice for both Ambassador Dale and Ambassador Lyra. He'll probably get along with them, they're bipedal like he is, probably distantly related, really.” “They'll see it that way, for sure. And remember, it won't escape their memory that the embassy is half-filled with minotaur furniture.” “If Lyra has problems, she'll come to us, rather than us forcing things on her.” “Yes.” “I like it.” Double Talk said. “How soon?” “As soon as possible. I've heard from Fancy Pants that especially after the trial, with all that manure coming from the Baltimare Sun and Graphite’s mouth, having some forward progress is really going to help things out.” “We don't want political considerations to enter into it,” Corduroy objected. “The Embassy is independent of politics. We should—why are you laughing?” “Embassies are nothing but political considerations. This one especially, because it's new,” Old Hickory told him. “Have it just sitting there, doing nothing, and everypony on the Council wants to poke his horn in it. When things start working, though, everything becomes an international problem, and nopony wants to get too involved. “We'll send telegrams tomorrow morning. Or—no, let's send one tonight to the minotaurs. Not an official announcement of a meeting or a formal schedule, I'll word it more along the lines of wanting to have the meeting at their earliest convenience. If they haven’t already, they'll want to put together a team, do some guessing about what kind of negotiations there might be, then they’ll decide that sooner is better than later, and they'll send a telegram back by the end of the day tomorrow with the quickest that they can get out. “We'll reply that that's fine, that we're still formalizing processes and working on the embassy, ask for a small group, and they'll probably send their local ambassador and a couple retainers, and that'll be it. Figure two days from now, they'd leave on the morning train and plan to come back on the evening train. Then we could have a couple of days before a second meeting, if they want one that quick, and then we'll get a breakdown of how things went and schedule the meeting with the griffons.” Even though he had the final say, Old Hickory still looked around the table. “Does that sound good to everypony?” “I still think we ought to prepare more,” Corduroy said. “Go at a slower pace.” “How about you go down there for the meeting, too?” Double Talk suggested. “As an observer from the Crown. That will make things nice and official, nopony could object to that.” “I could object to that.” “But you won't.” Old Hickory smiled. “It's good for you. I'll get the telegrams sent.” The two of them had settled into a bit of a routine—Princess Luna rose earlier, and spent a few peaceful hours in her study with Trixie, examining copies of the human books. Trixie showed little interest in the anatomy book, which was just as well. Copies of that book weren’t being made fast enough to satisfy all the ponies who were curious, and while nopony would ever object to Princess Luna keeping one of the precious copies if she so desired, they were much happier to see it in the hooves of medical experts. Luna had hoped that the showmare would find the astronomy book as fascinating as she had, but in fact what had really held Trixie’s interest the most was the picture-dictionary. Even though she was allowed to examine the book on her own, she rarely did, only studying it in Luna’s company. But the ideas that the book presented—the concepts—were clearly sticking in the unicorn’s mind, for she would draw sketch after sketch of machines, clever magical-powered human-inspired devices. Had she not been a showmare, she could have made her fortune with such marvelous machines, Luna thought. Her sketches were as good as any she’d seen in the Patent Office. They’d discussed the theoretical workings of human stoves that evening—Trixie was sure that they had some sort of smokeless fire inside of them, which was why they were painted white and did not have stovepipes. Luna had been less sure, remembering that in Dale’s dream, the giant rockets had been mostly white, and they had produced enough smoke to almost completely cover the rocket before it left the launch pad. So much we do not understand. Trixie was learning their language—slowly, perhaps, but more quickly than Luna, who had far more responsibilities and little time free to devote to it. “If you cannot give a pony hope, give her something to do,” Luna muttered as she walked through her chambers. She couldn’t remember who had said that or how many years it had been since she heard those words uttered. Centuries? Millenia? The corruption of Trixie’s cutie mark was fading; perhaps not as quickly as Luna would have liked, but for the showmare the worst was over. In time, the memories and dark thoughts would fade, too, as the darkness lost its grip on her. There was still one who needed a light to guide her, however, so Luna wrote a note and gave it to Dusk Glimmer, before letting herself into her guards’ chambers. That note would make its way to the Royal Telegrapher and would be in Ponyville faster than a pony could fly, almost faster than teleportation or dragonfire, even. Such a miracle of communications. She knew where to find Nightgazer. He was dozing in the darkened chambers, his roost-mate’s wing across his back. Protecting him, perhaps, or they were sharing a dream as the thestrals often did. His head came up as she crossed the chamber, and a moment later, so did his roost-mate’s. I cannot send him alone. “Nightgazer.” “Your Grace.” He stood briefly at attention, then bowed before her. His roost-mate also lowered her muzzle to the ground. “Rime Mane.” “If it pleases Your Honor, I prefer Hrímfaxi,” she said softly. “Well spoken. We remember several other thestrals who didst choose that name; all have served us honorably. Nightgazer, what progress hast thou made?” “Little.” He frowned. “Her dreams vanish nearly as soon as formed.” “We feared that. Thus, we have prepared a telegram, and we wish for you to fly to Ponyville posthaste. Perhaps in her presence, thou shalt better guard her dreams. “Go to the embassy; they shall be expecting you. You shall represent our House, you shall perform night guard duties if required, and you shall also protect and guide Ka-th-rin through her darkness.” The pair of ponies bowed deeply. “As you command.” It did not take them long to dress in their armor; that was always kept close. Nightgazer helped Hrímfaxi into hers—she was young and still learning. They could have flown off the Night Guards’ balcony, but instead chose to march through Luna’s chambers to give her one last opportunity to issue further orders if she so chose. She did not. They took wing from her balcony, Nightgazer in the lead and Hrímfaxi following. Something was wrong with her. Kate didn’t want to think about that, but she couldn’t help it. She didn’t have a good frame of reference for normality. All her memories were completely muddled, like her brain was some kind of stew, and every time she thought she had an idea what was going on, somebody would stir the pot and then she got confused again. Something was wrong inside her body, she knew that. It was probably caused by the drugs. They’d been giving her some kind of drugs, but she wasn’t certain why. She vaguely remembered being in a hospital, although she had no idea how long ago that had been. Now she was in a house, one that a bunch of ponies lived in. It was hard for her to know how many of them there were, even though they were all different colors and some of them were unicorns and some of them weren’t. There seemed to be a constant parade of them, coming into her room and out of it, plus others she saw sometimes, elsewhere in the house. The light blue unicorn with the purple mane who brought her food sometimes, or the pink one with curly hair and a star on her butt. There was a light green one that always seemed to be with Rorschach—she was sure that was his name—and once in a while she’d seen an ivory colored pony with her. Recently, there had been another one with a white coat and glasses and a severe bun who looked very official, and she thought she’d also seen a bluish-purple pony who had wings, even though that couldn’t be right. Ponies didn’t have wings, and she’d never seen her again, so it must have been her imagination. Or did they? There was a green one who lived across the yard and watched her through the window, and that pony had wings. And there were others, as well. Stallions dressed in armor—she didn’t know how many of those there were; she’d seen two of them at the same time who looked exactly alike, or at least she thought she had. Maybe they were twins. Her memory wasn’t clear on that. There’d been something wrong with her hand, which might have been why they gave her drugs. She could clearly remember the slender white unicorn who was often in her room doing something to it, leaning over it, and when she did there were bright lights and some pain. Almost like welding. Her stomach clenched, and she got back out of bed and hurried to the bathroom, her zebra nurse behind her. She’d been drugged and now she was sick and didn’t feel like eating, and she thought that they might be poisoning her food, but that was stupid. What would the point of that be? Even if they had, she couldn’t remember eating anything all day. Longer and longer flashes of memory were slowly coming back. She hadn’t always been in a house full of ponies. She’d been in a world full of humans and there weren’t colorful ponies with big eyes there at all. Just ordinary-colored horses. It’s the drugs. That was the only logical explanation. She’d never really done drugs before. Nothing harder than alcohol, and she vaguely remembered having smoked pot once. But it hadn’t been like this. Thoughts were hard to pin down when she was sick and drugged and weak and half the time she couldn’t understand what the ponies were saying. It wasn’t whinnies and nickers and snorts—although they occasionally did that—it was like the radio on the boat was turned down too low or the helicopter was too far away and only little bits of conversation actually got through but it was obviously a voice, a language, something above the static. Another language. It must be another language. Everything else sounded fine; other sounds were true to her ears. She tried to focus but she was too hot and her guts were like water and maybe they should take her back to the hospital. Maybe they’d let her out too soon. Kate rested her head in her hands. Moving around made her light-headed. People who were sick like she was needed to be in a hospital with wires hooked up to them and IVs full of fluid in their arms and drugs to— No more drugs. She gritted her teeth. Pain and discomfort were proof that she was alive, instead of the dreamy comfortable numbness that had dulled all her memories. Were we at war with the pony people? Am I a prisoner of war? That was an absurd thought. She thought she knew how a captive of war would be treated, and it wasn’t like this. Or was it? She wasn’t a soldier, she didn’t think, but there was a uniform in her room and she was sure it was hers. The zebra who’d accompanied her to the bathroom wiped her face with a cool cloth. Her voice was different, sing-song, and while she could not understand any words at all, hers was the most comforting voice of all of them. The other ponies did understand the zebra, and that wasn’t fair. Kate wanted to know what she said, too. She brushed her hand against the zebra’s mane. It was bristled and felt like a worn nylon broom but it was a comfortable touch, a comfortable feeling. Especially on her right hand, which had something wrong with it. The joints were stiff, and yet the flesh felt new and fresh, as if it was experiencing sensations for the first time. Kate and the zebra walked back to her bedroom, a room she was getting more and more tired of. She wanted to be out of it, and back doing—whatever it was she was supposed to be doing. Back on a boat. She could remember being on a boat. A military boat: there had been a gun on it. “Gunner, I’m a gunner,” she said. And for a moment she could remember the bark of the M240, the way the belt of ammo bounced as it fed into the maw of the gun, and then that was gone, replaced instead with a flashback of being in the middle of the lake, rain lashing down, her and Cortez tying to make a tow line fast to the stern bitt, and then that memory was gone, too, replaced with the smell of toast. There was a whole tray of dry toast in her room, waiting beside her bed, and her stomach roiled at the thought of food but she knew that she needed something to eat, she needed to keep her strength up or she would be back in the hospital with wires on her chest and fluids being fed into her veins and more of the drugs that confused her and it would be easy to just slip away like that, but she didn’t want easy, not any more. Not now that she was beginning to remember. While most of Ponyville went to bed with the sun, the hospital did not. The hospital could not—sick or injured ponies might arrive at any hour, and those who were already patients sometimes required care throughout the night. For some of the nurses, the hospital was as much a home as any other—and for others, the hospital was home; the lower floor had several apartments. Some were meant to be used temporarily, but there was also a suite intended for permanent occupation. The basement also contained the staff break room, which often as not was turned into a makeshift napping room. Even though half of Nurse Redheart’s duties were now at the embassy, she still went to the staff room after her shift. The walls were covered with Nursery Rhyme’s homework and artwork, notes on patients, clippings from medical journals, and a few faded newspaper articles about the hospital, mostly from the Ponyville Express. There was also a small section given over to thank-you cards from grateful patients and relatives. Most of those cards had been accompanied by flowers or chocolates which had long since been eaten. Upstairs, in the maternity ward, there was another, happier collection of foal photos pinned along the wall, many of them faded with age. She poured herself a cup of coffee—it was cold, but she was long-past caring about that—and then ran her eyes over the wall, making sure that there was no new news posted on the walls that she needed to know about. Satisfied that there was none, and that the hospital was operating as normally as ever, she eased herself into a seat. Redheart was not alone for long; she’d only finished half her coffee when Nurse Snowheart came into the room. “Long day?” Redheart nodded. “Kate is—” She sighed. “She’s getting better, but it’s slow.” “Yeah.” “How come it’s more exhausting to watch her for one shift than to be trotting my hooves off throughout the hospital taking care of patients? It’s—were you here that one spring that we had four mares drop foals the same day?” Snowheart shook her head. “All before lunch, too. I was the only nurse on . . . that was before Dr. Stable came to the hospital, too. I think—” She pictured the wall of foals in her mind. “Three years after the hospital was built, that’s when it was. Galloping back and forth, we ran out of hot water and clean towels and had to get more from the bakery. I don’t think that I felt so tired after that. I was in a happy daze all day long.” “It’s hard sometimes.” Snowheart looked at the dregs of coffee left, then stuck her muzzle in the icebox and came up empty a moment later. “I wonder if Apple Cobbler has any dessert left in the kitchen? She made candied alfalfa.” “I bet that’s long gone. We could go to the bakery.” “Nah.” Snowheart sat down beside her and took off her nurse’s cap and hair net, then shook her mane down. “I’ve been working with Screwy for five years now; she’s almost like a daughter to me. And every day it seems the same, every time I have to re-explain something and every time she has a relapse I think to myself that it isn’t working, that I’m not doing any good, that she’s not making any improvements. “But then I think of what she was like when we started to work with her and how much better she is now. She does all right at her home, and I’ve even taken her to market a couple of times—as long as there aren’t too many other ponies around she can make good choices.” Redheart nodded. “Kate will get all the way better. I don’t think that there’s any, any brain damage.” Snowheart shook her head. “I don’t think so either. Morphine—well, we don’t know for sure with her, but it doesn’t hurt ponies. We should have given Dale some, just a little bit, to see what it did to him. If it had the same effect.” “So far she’s still presenting like a pony. Another day or two and the worst will be behind us, I hope. I don’t—I’m worried about—have you heard that the Embassy is official now?” “I’d heard that Raven was in town and having meetings. Dr. Goodall told me that this morning.” “And Lecol says that there will be all sorts of meetings there soon. I worry about what that might do about her recovery. Lots of well-meaning ponies always come around to the maternity ward during foaling season, you know, and Mom needs time to rest and bond, plus sometimes mares get mean and bitey after they’ve had a foal.” Redheart took a sip of her cold coffee. “We were talking about moving her somewhere else.” “I know what you’re gonna ask, and I haven’t got any rooms or houses that are free. I’m not gonna move a pony—you have no idea how long it takes just figuring out who gets along with who, whose behaviors complement somepony else's instead of it turning into fights. I don’t want to mix up what’s working.” “I thought you were going to say that,” Redheart said with a sigh. “And I don’t really want to move her anyway, not if we don’t have to. She’s confused and you can see it in her eyes, she’s not properly understanding or processing things but now that she’s become familiar with her environment—with the embassy—I’d hate to change that.” “That’s a big thing. There’s a lot of comfort to be had in familiar surroundings. In that kind of stability. For a sick pony, it’s something that they can hold on to, an anchor.” “But as soon as the first delegation of minotaurs or griffons or who knows what shows up at the embassy to meet with Dale and Lyra, what’s she going to do?” A smile crossed Snowheart’s face. “You know what would be funny? When the mail comes to her house, Screwy likes to bark at Derpy. It’s really cute. She’ll go right up to the door, and scrape at it with her forehooves, and—” “—a door!” “—just imagine all those stuck-up diplomat ponies if she—” Snowheart blinked. “A door, yes. At the top of the stairs.” “Would Kate respect it?” “A lot of ponies respect boundaries, so I don’t see why not. It’s an easy thing to try, at least. It wouldn’t have to be there forever, just until she got all the way better. It would give her more privacy, and define a ‘safe’ area for her. Doors and walls don’t just keep a pony in, they keep other ponies out, you know.” She pointed in the direction of the hallway. “Nothing really stops anypony from just opening that door to the stairwell, but hardly any patients ever do.” “They might be mad if we just have one put in,” Redheart said, “and I don’t know whose budget it would come out of. Lecol said to just write ‘Embassy’ on everything that we need to bill for and not worry about it.” “You can’t always take Canterlot unicorns at their word.” “No, but . . . a lot of them just talk about how great they are, but Lecol was there with Dr. Stable every day and she’s there at the Embassy helping out. I don’t think that we have to worry about her word. It wouldn’t take Ambrosia too long to frame one in; I can—” “—I’ll do it. She’s probably at the Prancing Pony; if not, I can find her and let her know. I was gonna head back to the embassy for the night pretty soon anyway, and that way you haven’t got to make an extra trip.” Snowheart tucked her hair net up in her hat and then stuck it back on her head. “Get to bed early, rest up, and spend some time with Rhyme before she forgets what you look like. That’s an order.” Redheart stuck her tongue out at her colleague, but got up and dumped the rest of her coffee in the sink, then walked to the suite. Their fire hadn’t attracted anything other than moths. While it wasn’t possible for Cerulean or Viridian to move out to sea to observe if it was big enough to be seen from a distance, they both knew from training just how far a fire could be visible or smelled, and they also knew that from three sides, there was little but open water as far as they could see, optimizing viewing distance. If there had been anyone curious, they would surely have been drawn to the fire, much as the moths were. The fire also had the effect of completely ruining their night vision, making the lights of distant ships—if there were any out there—impossible to see. So after a few hours, they let it burn down. While there was still firelight to work by, Viridian stacked wood for a new signal fire—this one to be used if they did see lights getting close. “Maybe they prefer to travel by day,” Viridian suggested. “I’m sure there’s a lighthouse on that island,” Cerulean said, pointing a hoof southwest. “There was a tower that I could see just over the tops of the trees, and that must be what it’s for. It didn’t look like a watchtower.” “Why doesn’t it show a light, then?” “I don’t know.” He sat down on the sand. “Maybe they only light it when there’s a ship to signal.” “That doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ve never heard of a lighthouse or signal tower that doesn’t send out signals all the time. How would a boat know where to navigate at night if it couldn’t see lighthouses all the time to guide its way?” “Ambassador Lyra’s report says that humans might be tribal,” Cerulean mused. “So if they want to keep their islands hidden at night—at least keep them safe from nighttime raids—maybe they would keep them dark.” “There might be monsters that the light attracts, too. Something bigger than moths.” “Giant moths?” Viridian snorted. “Where would you get the idea of a giant moth? I was thinking of a sea serpent or something like that. Rocs, maybe, or even nocturnal dragons.” “Are there nocturnal dragons?” “Probably.” He gazed upwards. “Their moon sure looks weird. I suppose the stars are different, too, but I don’t know them all that well.” “They are . . . well, some of them are. You can’t see the Plowpony at all, that ought to be visible low on the horizon to the northeast.” Cerulean pointed a hoof off in that direction. “But there’s a line of stars over there, those look kind of like Orion’s Belt, but the rest of the constellation isn’t the same. I can kind of imagine that if I moved some of the stars around it might line up.” He glanced back up into the sky. “I want to know what the red and green and white lights that move are.” “Didn’t Ambassador Lyra’s report mention those, too?” He nodded. “And that she didn’t know what they were. Some of them seem to be on a fixed course, almost, and other ones aren’t. I wish we had a proper astronomer with us, maybe she’d have an idea. I think that they’re closer than that, though. Stars don’t move very fast, and these do.” Cerulean pointed up. “Like that one there, it’s moving much faster than the stars do.” “It doesn’t look very fast to me.” “If it’s far away.” Both Cerulean and Viridian studied the moving light. With no other visual references, it was nearly impossible to guess its speed or distance. “This is a silly thought, but I heard that they have trains that are much bigger than any trains that we have.” “Where? I haven’t seen any tracks or trains.” “Not here. There isn’t anything here. But Dale brought a book that had drawings of all sorts of human things. I’ve seen copies of some of the pictures. They might have giant airships, too, maybe really fast ones. And if they do, they might put lights on them so that they won’t bump into each other at night.” “Pegasi wear lights for night patrols sometimes.” Viridian rubbed his chin. “Airships are kind of flimsy, though, and wouldn’t one of them fall apart if it went too fast? The wind would blow it apart.” “What if it made its own wind?” “That would be . . . I suppose it could be done. It doesn’t seem practical when there are better ways to get around but I guess if there is lots of open water to cross, places where a bridge couldn’t be built.” “And it could even land on a floating city, like the one we saw. Or an island. Or anywhere.” “You don’t think that that beacon—that lighthouse—points up, do you?” “We’d see it reflected in the sky.” He smiled. “Or on all the moths flying around in its light.” Five AM was not a time that anybody sensible got up, certainly not on what was in some ways a vacation. And yet, not only was Professor Forsyth’s entire expedition awake, nearly all of them were dressed and packed. The front desk turned into the only hiccup in their plan—the clerk was clearly not accustomed to people checking out of their rooms at six AM, and when he finally arrived, he was bleary-eyed and seemed to be having some trouble with the computer. Just the same, it didn’t take overly long for them to depart the Super 8. Professor Forsyth led the little convoy to Bay Harbor, and they parked as close to the docks as they could. Captain Jim was already there, waiting for them. The boat, Professor Forsyth was relieved to see, was bigger than he’d anticipated, and looked quite seaworthy. More importantly, it was plenty large enough to stow all their equipment aboard. It was well after sunrise before they finally had all their equipment loaded aboard. Captain Jim was a consummate professional; the only reaction to this somewhat unusual charter he’d permitted himself was a raised eyebrow as they brought case after case of scientific instruments aboard. While some members of his team went belowdecks, Professor Forsyth felt a growing sense of anticipation as the twin diesels rumbled to life. He had to stay topside; he felt it was important to get a proper feel for the voyage. The only damper on his spirits was how slow it was. The boat languidly cleared the docks and puttered across the bay, towards the channel. It took an agonizingly long time to clear the jetty, and he was beginning to wonder just how long this journey was going to take—their early departure must have been so that they’d have enough time to get to the island, disembark, and then the boat could return home. He sighed—he should have chartered an airplane. It would have cost more, true, but it would have been much quicker. Professor Forsyth knew very little about boats, or no-wake zones. As soon as the stern of the boat had passed the harbor lights, Captain Jim pushed the throttles forward, and the twin screws bit into the water. The stern of the boat dropped slightly, and Professor Forsyth grabbed onto a handrail as the Tiara entered her element. He couldn’t know that Captain Jim wasn’t even at full throttle—to give his passengers a more comfortable ride, he felt for where the boat cut through the waves rather than bounce over them—to his mind, the boat could have been a rocket. It glided across the surface easily, almost effortlessly, and it didn’t seem like it was long at all before the harbor lights were lost to sight behind them. It was chilly on the lake—he should have worn a heavier coat—but he wasn't going to go belowdecks and rummage through his suitcase. Instead, he made his way forward, and he stood as close to the bow as he could safely get, his hands gripped tightly on the rail. Dawn had brought another rain squall. Viridian lit their signal fire—not because he thought it would do any good, but for the minimal warmth it would provide. Although retreating to the woods was always an option, both Guards wanted to stay close to the shore in case anything arrived, but nothing did. “Would have been nice to see the sunrise over the water,” Cerulean said. “It’s really pretty. Normally with trees and stuff you can’t see it until it’s a little ways above the horizon. I got posted to the grasslands once, and that was kind of like being on a beach. Hardly any trees.” Viridian yawned. “How are you holding up?” “Tired, cold and wet. I’m out of gem dust, too.” “I should have thought to bring some.” “I had this idea in my mind that someperson would come. I don’t know why—if there had been people on the island, the first Guards would have found them, right?” Viridian nodded. “And then we wouldn’t be here.” “Not the worst thing I’ve had to do.” “Me, either. I do wish we’d brought food for a proper breakfast. I should have thought of that. Wouldn’t have to have been much.” “At least there’s some grass to graze on, but it’s pretty tough. I—does grass take up sand?” “I think so. Not whole pieces, but little bits. Like very fine powder, it gets in the water and the grass sucks it up, that’s why it’s kind of gritty. Usually on the ocean, there’s a lot of salt in the plants, too. Sometimes that’s nice, especially after a lot of exercise, but it can get to be too much after a while, you know?” “Yeah.” Cerulean shifted around on the sand. “I read in a book once where a castaway wrote a message on the beach with rocks, just in case a pegasus flew overhead.” “Do you think we should? In case those lights we saw last night were airships?” “There aren’t enough big rocks nearby, and what’s the point of dragging lots of them into place? By the time anypony saw them, we’d be gone. I suppose we could write out something in our hoofprints, though.” “Maybe just our names.” Viridian glanced back at the flag. “We could move down the beach a little bit—where do you think?” “Noperson would think that we were trying to capture the island, would they?” “It wouldn’t last that many days. When the sand dries, it’ll collapse and move around even in the tiniest wind.” He pointed off to the clear sky in the west. “When the clouds clear and the sun dries the sand—I think it would be gone by the end of the day.” “Mmh.” Cerulean looked back at the distant clouds. “How much longer should we stay?” “How much longer do you think you can keep maintaining the spell? I’d rather leave before we get kicked back. No sense in pushing yourself too hard—nopony’s gonna give you a medal for being dragged off to the hospital as soon as we return.” “Let’s wait until the sun’s up a little bit. Maybe another big floating city will come by.” “Let me know if you’re feeling weak,” Viridian advised. “Rest by the fire, and I’ll make sure that the box didn’t move in the night. Make sure that everything is where it should be.” Their course was nearly a straight line. Captain Jim made one diversion, cutting south to pass behind the stern of a lake freighter. They came close enough that Professor Forsyth could see the name on the stern: Arthur M. Anderson. That sounded vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t say why he knew it. After they’d passed behind it, he realized that he couldn’t see land behind him any more. The haze and sun had conspired to block it from view. He could vaguely make up the form of islands rising over the water, although the boat wasn’t headed to either of them. He turned his head as Captain Jim muttered something. “What’s going on?” Captain Jim turned to face Dr. Forsyth. “There’s something going on with the radar and the radios. Some kind of electrical problem.” He reached a switch and the fish-finder came to life. “Well, that works normally.” “Electrical problem?” “A ground or something. It doesn’t matter, we shouldn’t need them. Skies are clearing, and there isn’t much out here to bump into. GPS is still working, so we won’t miss your island.” He glanced back down at the offending instruments for a moment. “Where are you planning on landing? There aren’t any docks or anything like that, remember.” “Yes, yes, I do. The south end, that’s where it—that’s where we’re going.” “Some kind of research.” Dr. Forsyth crossed his arms. “Yes, that’s right.” “I hope none of your equipment is water-sensitive. I can anchor offshore but unless you want to wade in, you’ll be using the Zodiac to get to shore, and I can’t promise everything will stay dry.” “I know.” This wasn’t the first time they’d had that conversation. “I told everyone, and they’ve got their stuff really well-packed.” “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Captain Jim said, “but your crew doesn’t look like you’re packed for an expedition in the wilderness. I’ve taken hunters out here before.” “Dr. Cressida has been on several field expeditions in the Middle East and Africa; she knows a thing or two about packing for an expedition.” Forsyth himself didn’t; he’d never spend a single night camping, not even as a boy. Books were more interesting than being out in the woods, after all. “I guess I’m just used to seeing a lot more camo and blaze orange,” Captain Jim decided. “As long as you know what you’re doing.” He chuckled. “I’d never thought I’d be taking an expedition anywhere—it’s like some Indiana Jones shit.” “Hopefully there aren’t any Nazis on the island.” “Yeah.” He glanced over the bow. “I think I can see it just ahead. It’s faint, but I’ve got an eye on the island. We’ll be there in an hour or less, I’d say. Current’s sometimes a little tricky but we’ve got plenty of power. How’s everyone else holding up? Nobody gets seasick, do they?” “I don’t think so.” “That’s good.” They’d seen the ship pass by, at a much-greater distance than the previous one had. It had not investigated their fire, instead, it just continued on its way north. Once it was gone from sight, the two Guards took one last look around their temporary outpost. Aside from the box, in a few days there would be no evidence that they’d ever been there. Viridian did all the work; fatigue was quickly creeping up on Cerulean. He was sure that Viridian could see it in his face, but he told him just the same. Lots of younger soldiers might have pretended to still have magical reserves when they didn’t, and that could cause an entire troop of ponies to be killed. It was better to be honest about how much strength he had remaining. “We should leave the flag,” Viridian said. “It feels right to me. And we won’t need it as a signal.” “They might think—” “Furled. Rolled up around the pole. So it wouldn’t be like it had fallen over, it would be respectful. I think that would send a message that we had come and that we intended to come back.” “Do we?” “Maybe not us, but other ponies. Other missions. If there is anyperson else here. Ka-th-rin’s tribe, or Dale’s. I bet Princess Celestia will want to know if somepony got the message, at least.” “I’m sure if they have a Princess, they’ll take the box to her. Nothing in there has any other value to anypony.” “There are spells that can track something, aren’t there?” “They’d never work over this vast a distance.” The two guards fell silent, until Viridian finally spoke again. “The fire’s burning low and we’re out of firewood. Let me patrol the edge of the beach one more time, just to see if there are any more ships off in the distance.” Cerulean nodded and watched him go. It didn’t take very long for him to reach the southernmost point of land, and he didn’t have to walk very far to see everything in the arc around them. Viridian paused, and looked back at the unicorn, then began walking up to a clear spot on the beach that they hadn’t been over. For a second, Cerulean thought he was marching a watch pattern, then realized that he was putting their names in the sand. When he’d finished, he came back to camp and kicked damp sand over their fire, snuffing it completely. Even though there was little danger of it spreading, they both knew the dangers of an unattended fire. He didn’t need to report that he’d seen nothing. They moved back up to the flag, the locus of the spell, and Viridian wiggled the pole to loosen it up, then pulled it out of the sandy soil. “Do you want to put it by the box?” “I think it’s better here,” he said. “You wouldn’t lower the flag at a fort and then move the flagpole somewhere else.” “No,” Cerulean agreed. He rolled the flag tightly around the shaft and then leaned it up against a tree, wedging it between two branches so that the wind wouldn’t cause it to unwind again. And then with a small flash of magic and a crack, they were gone. Dr. Forsyth squinted at the nearing island. “Do you think—I should have brought binoculars.” “There’s a set in that cabinet.” Dr. Forsyth opened the door and quickly found the box. He put the lens caps back in the box and the strap around his neck—they looked like an expensive pair—then brought them up to his eyes and attempted to focus them. All the motions of the boat were magnified through the lenses, and what seemed like a simple task in movies was far more complicated in reality. Besides the obvious up-and-down motion of the boat, there was a lesser roll and swing as it went over waves, which he was entirely unable to anticipate. He got brief glimpses of the island and much longer views of the lake and the sky. “Takes some getting used to,” Captain Jim said. “I could throttle down, that would help some.” “I’d rather keep going fast, so we’ll get there sooner.” He’d finally managed to figure out how to keep the binoculars more or less focused on the island. He’d seen it a few times on satellite photos and it hadn’t seemed all that far from the mainland, but then on the boat it had felt like it was impossibly far, like they’d never get there, especially when they’d sailed out of sight of Michigan. Like he’d been chasing something imaginary, like he was Don Quixote tilting at windmills. Now that he could see the shore somewhat clearly through his binoculars, it was suddenly real again. “You said deer hunters go to the island?” “Yeah, the DNR put deer on the islands for hunters. Mostly state land, you know. It’s way too early in the season to worry about hunters, though. Deer season doesn’t start until October. “Huh.” His binoculars settled on the tip of the island for a moment before bouncing off-target again. “Seems like a long way to travel.” “Doesn’t make sense to me, either, but it was probably some rich guys who wanted their own private hunting ground and this was the closest they were going to come to that. “Some guy who lived in Ann Arbor used to own it, but he got busted for kiddie porn, and the state took it away from him. Supposedly he took kids to the island, and—well.” “So are there houses there? Or cabins?” “Nothing, as far as I know. Nothing habitable, anyway; might be some ruined buildings from way back when there were fishermen and trappers on the islands. All I’d expect to find there is just sand and rocks and trees, and the grass strip runway on the north end of the island.” He turned his attention away from the open lake in front of him for a moment. “If you get in some kind of trouble, might be best to get there to get rescued, if you can. Best to go along the western shore until you find it; it’s a little ways inland on the east side, and you might not see it through the trees. There probably won’t be anybody there, but if a Coast Guard chopper had to land, that would be the best spot. Plus, you’d be a lot easier to spot.” “Thanks. I hope it doesn’t come to that.” “Just don’t do anything dumb, and it won’t.” Captain Jim flicked the fish-finder back on. “Poor man’s depth finder. Just in case the other one craps out.” “Does that happen often?” “Never has so far, but I’d rather play it safe, and since I’ve got it, might as well use it. If you can be pried off the bridge for a couple minutes, might want to tell your colleagues that we’re getting close. Gonna start throttling down here pretty soon. Oh, one more thing I ought to mention, just in case. You can drink the lake water, it won’t hurt you.” “I know that.” “Just thought I’d mention it. Some guy from Detroit wound up adrift in Lake Michigan a few years back, and when the Coast Guard found him, he was almost dead from dehydration. Apparently didn’t realize how much fresh water he was floating on.” ••• They got closer than Dr. Forsyth had imagined they would before Captain Valley throttled back. The four of them were crowded up in the bow, taking in the details of the island. “We should have come in further north,” Dr. Clay said. “To make sure that we don’t land on top of anything.” “It’s been months since it happened; there won’t be anything right on the beach. The police investigation or waves would have wiped out anything right on shore. It’s not like we’re gonna be seeing faded footprints in the sand or anything, as much as I’d like to.” “I want to get a good look-around as quick as we can, walk the beach before we even set up camp. I always like to get the lay of the land.” “Not a bad idea, Jaylen. But let’s not get so carried away that we forget to set anything up before nightfall.” “Let’s get a couple solar panels up right away, too, so we can keep the spare batteries for everything charged up. That’s easy to forget.”