//------------------------------// // Chapter 55 // Story: Voyage of the Equinox // by Starscribe //------------------------------// Give Node the Countermeasure, investigate perpetuity 65% Twilight wanted to leave the mysterious object behind. But not quite so much as she needed to know what it was. It was located on the ground floor, along a straight path directly from the entrance. If the Signalers thought about design even remotely like ponies did, it was probably the main purpose for ‘the Memorial.’ I need to figure out a way to let Applejack study it without exposing her to it like I was. She had a bad feeling that other ponies would have a harder time resisting its effects. They might not stand a chance at all. “New orders, Node. Take this, and don’t bring it within three meters of anypony on the crew, even me.” Node took the sphere carefully, and though it had no face to watch, it seemed to Twilight as though it was raising an eyebrow at her. “We will explore the remaining section of this facility three meters apart? That seems difficult.” “Do you think we could… leave it somewhere? Maybe in the hallway behind us, wherever it turns to Perpetuity. I intend to investigate that section before we return to the Prospector.” “Very well. Would it be improper for me to inquire the reason for this instruction. The device does not appear dangerous. My sensors read no large store of potential energy, no radiation above background, no unusual sonic effects. Its low-level em field is not unlike that produced by all your primitive machines.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “You mean you don’t feel it… bending gravity?” Node shook slightly. “My accelerometers register no gravitational distortion. Not like the four negative Gs I registered when you bent space.” That’s… that can’t be right. Twilight glanced down to her mane, tilting slightly towards the sphere. She expected it to stand on end, but… nothing. It’s in my head. Twilight took another step back. If the effects were only mental, then in some ways that was much worse. Mind magic was dark stuff, and not something she well understand. Too bad you’re not the real Starlight Glimmer. She could tell us all about that thing. “Just… follow my instructions,” Twilight said. “I think not being organic might make you immune.” “If you say so,” Node said, disbelieving. They returned to the central hallway, and traced it back some distance until a strange, backwards branch, one she wouldn’t have seen walking inward. The walls made it almost invisible until she was right beside it, and even then the coloration of the floor and ceiling hurt her head with purely geometric trickery. Twilight briefly closed her eyes, marching forward in defiance of the instinct that told her she was going to smack into a wall… And she didn’t smack into a wall. Rather, there was a ramp twisting to the side, leading up into one of the larger rectangular sections she had observed from outside the facility. Lights came on above her as she stepped through a doorway into a vast space, illuminating… Cylindrical sample containers, each one three meters tall and one across. Their contents were a slightly off-white fluid, along with… creatures. A voice spoke in the Signaler’s incomprehensible language. It was high and guttural, with almost mechanical sounds mixed with the more familiar organic. But Node could translate. It had left the Countermeasure at the base of the ramp, where it wouldn’t pull the stomach out from Twilight any longer. “Observe failure,” Node said. “Each… mutation is an attempt. Variations were… insufficient to purpose. Contingency of each, not continuation. Reprocessed.” Twilight stuck out a wing to stop it from walking away. “Are you sure you can’t do better? That was incomprehensible.” Node folded its manipulation limbs across its chest, tilting slightly towards her. “Parody of conception with your species approaches zero. My creators wanted the visitors to this place to see these failed… designs, and learn from them. Not to waste your effort on things they had already tried.” Cylinders were located on either side of an illuminated walkway, each one with a strange, multilayered bit of glass stuck in a removeable bracket on the front. There was also a flat piece of metal, laser-etched with an intricate square pattern. Twilight approached the nearest container, staring in with horror. The creature vaguely resembled Node’s basic layout, though it had only two upper limbs and two legs, with a flat face and even stranger feet. It reminded Twilight of various preserved animal samples she might’ve seen in a biology lab, all the color leeched from this creature and its eyes glazed and sightless. Small eyes for a creature taller than she was. She wandered to the next cylinder, and saw the creature gain some mechanical parts—a second set of limbs, like Node. And so went each successive container—a new individual, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes she couldn’t tell. Variations on the basic pattern stretched so far that sometimes it even approached ponies in places, while a few lost almost all their fleshy parts and were primarily rusting mechanical beings with fleshy sacks for their torsos and heads. This was not a map of evolution—it varied wildly, with some designs apparently regressing tremendously before exploring an entirely different direction. They looked like fierce carnivores one moment, then fleshy sacks of brain the next. Integration with mechanical parts was common in most, but not all. Some had resisted the years better than others, and seemed almost as though they were asleep more than dead. “These were… people,” Twilight declared, as they finally reached the end of the path. and a mechanical door with an airlock and an obvious control button. “Creatures stolen from… many planets? Each one of those panels explains what they were like.” She hadn’t seen one for Equestria, however much she’d been anticipating one. Unless that’s what’s waiting for me at the end of the hall. “Stolen? I don’t believe so. You ponies sometimes donate your cadavers to science. This is similar. Being here insures these beings and their kind are… remembered. The guide says that many of them are… faithful recreations. But some are original.” “And what’s in here?” Twilight asked, nodding towards the door. It was unmarked, though it was wider and taller than a pony door by far. “The lab where they made them?” “The map labels that section as… there’s no easy translation. Hospital. Preservation room. Cryogenic storage. Taxidermy.” Twilight gritted her teeth, then pushed the button. There was a hiss of chemical-smelling air, and the door retracted. She found herself walking through something like what Node had described, not quite a hospital, not quite a cryogenics bay. The medical equipment in here heavily featured the strange glass the Signalers used above, and tiny mechanical parts that she suspected went right down to the microscopic level. But there were other things she couldn’t easily classify. Like machines the size of single-occupancy escape pods, with glass walls and strange magic radiating faintly from their controls. Or something her horn thought was similar to magic, anyway. Most of them were clear and empty, all except one. The little lights that flashed from this machine flashed regularly in cheerful colors. Where the other objects faintly twinkled with magic, this machine hummed with it. Magic few ponies besides Twilight Sparkle could’ve dreamed of casting. Twilight attempts to identify the magic. Success It was time magic, more powerful than anything Star Swirl had ever written. And it was stable. Twilight approached, raising one leg, and wiped away at the condensation from the porthole-like window on the front. She screamed, fell back, nearly collapsed. She crawled her way back, staring inside in morbid fascination. There was a pony inside, one that was frozen on her back legs, as though rearing up away from the window in terror. Apple Bloom would’ve been much taller, even taller than her sister now. Her body had matured with the muscles of hard work. Though… that wasn’t the only thing to see about her. Her uniform vaguely resembled the space suits used on the Equinox, though much of it had been ripped away with jagged, frayed edges. It’s not the window she’s afraid of. She’s looking down at herself. At her foreleg, to be precise. Apple Bloom’s front leg looked like it was being… eaten. From the fetlock down it looked metallic, and tendrils of reflective silver were visible twisting up and around her leg. Celestia save us. 1. Call Applejack here right now. She deserves to know about this immediately. If Shining Armor were here and she had found him, I’d be furious if she didn’t tell me. 2. Take pictures, bring them back to show Applejack when her health has recovered. She deserves to know the truth when she can handle it. 3. Instruct Node not to repeat this information. We don’t need ponies freaking out about this. I’ve already got enough true things to share that they’ll be satisfied. (Certainty 210 required)