When Stars Come Out to Play

by Chicago Ted

Chapter 9 - Intergalactic Intellect!

“Please tell me the next planet isn’t some madhouse party,” Twilight begged.
“Don’t worry none, sugar, it can’t be further from that if you tried,” the Sun reassured. “Though actually, it might get boring for you.”
Boring? Does that mean. . . ? “What do you mean by that?” Twilight asked.
“I mean there’s not really much to do with Uranus,” the Sun said. “Well, unless you’re a bookworm like her or something.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. Finally, something for me to read! A sense of normalcy in this cosmic madness! “Well, I’m sure there’s nothing for me to worry about,” she said. “Sounds like what I normally do back where I come from.” Still need to find a way home. Let’s just see if this ‘Uranus’ knows a thing or two about that.
“All you normally do is study from books?” Milky Way asked. “You sound a bit old for school, if you ask me. Don’t you have any friends?”
Twilight rolled her eyes at the question. “I can get by without friends just fine, thank you very much.”
“Even Uranus has us as her friends,” Mars said. “Aren’t we your friends, too? Isn’t Milky Way?”
How do I answer this without upsetting them? Twilight pondered. I’ve stuck with them for what feels like hours now. . . but how long does somepony need to know somepony else to be friends? And like it or not, I have nothing to do without them. It’s the least I could do –
“Your calm speaks volumes,” the Moon commented. “Yet you vie for a way home. I completely understand.”
Eh, perhaps it’s better that way. Twilight fixed her attention back ahead of herself – and her earlier fears were confirmed. She sighed. It was another gas giant, ringed as well – but unlike Saturn’s planet, these rings were tilted on their sides – and as Twilight got closer, she saw they were filled not with aliens, but with books, an enormous infinite bookshelf constantly revolving.
And there on top of the planet, shelving a book and grabbing another, was their next contact – Uranus. Unlike the other girls so far, she looked far more responsible, in her smart shirt, vest, and skirt. The only thing that stuck out as odd was her apple insignia.
Twilight rolled her eyes. She remembered her first day of attending Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. As was tradition for foals like her, she brought an apple with her, thinking it would impress the teacher. Unfortunately, her first teacher happened to be Professor Top Marks, who didn’t take too kindly with a filly Twilight bringing food into the classroom. Oh well, she thought, live and learn.
“Hold on, there’s something I need to do,” said Jupiter. She and her pets fell behind the rest of the group.
“Is there something I’m missing?” Twilight asked.
“Uranus doesn’t like having animals near her books,” Venus said. “I don’t know how well she’ll take to you, but you seem responsible yourself.”
Here’s hoping for the best, Twilight thought.
Mercury popped out from behind the planet. “There you are!” she said. “I’ve been here for hours already – bored out of my mind!”
“Oh hush, Mercury,” Uranus said. “There’s no reason not to study something when you’re waiting for your friends. Speaking of which, hello there!” This one was clearly well-read, as Twilight surmised from her language.
Finally, someone who understands me! Twilight thought. If I am going to make friends out here, it’ll definitely be her.
“Hey Uranus,” the Sun said. “Got a second? It’s something rather important.”
“As important as reading?” Uranus asked. Well. . . .
“Probably even more important than that, sugar,” the Sun replied. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Black Hole.”
Uranus snapped her fingers. “Yes, of course! I have a book about him right here somewhere. . . .” She reached up to her ringed bookshelf and gave it a spin. A dizzying array of books rushed by her – more books than Twilight could read in a lifetime, or even count in a lifetime – and after a moment, she stopped the wheel of knowledge with her hand, and unshelved a rather thick tome. She flipped it open to one apparently bookmarked section, and started reading aloud:

Everyone else was starting to tire from Uranus’s reading, but not Twilight – this was something she lived for, studying under Princess Celestia. Though she kept wondering about several aspects of the text – how exactly do these girls keep track of time? for instance.
But then Uranus eventually got to one section that particularly caught Twilight’s attention:

Everyone was shocked, especially Milky Way of all people. “That bad, huh?” she said.
“Indeed.” Just as Uranus was about to reshelve the book, she turned around and looked at Milky Way again. “I don’t believe I’ve ever seen either of you here before.”
“I’m Milky Way,” she said, “and this is Twilight Sparkle. We’ve been looking for fragments of a planetoid that I may have destroyed by accident.”
“Wait. . . is this why the Sun brought up Black – ugh.” Uranus rested her head in her hands. Her disappointment was palpable, and immeasurable. I hope we didn’t ruin her day, Twilight worried. We still need her help. “How long ago did you break him free?” Uranus asked Milky Way.
“Um. . . .”
Uranus gripped Milky Way by the shoulder. Twilight hopped off, startled by her. “How long ago!?” Uranus demanded.
“I think. . . .” Milky Way struggled to remember exactly how long ago this happened. “About eight hours ago?” she finally answered. Eight hours? Twilight thought. I’ve been awake for almost forty now, and I’m not even a little tired. Guess space will do that to you.
“I’m glad you got right on the problem at least,” Uranus said. “It would be a shame if it was closer to eight weeks ago.” She looked down to Twilight. “Though I would have to ask you not to bring your pets here, Milky Way,” she said. “I’d appreciate it.”
“Hey, I am not her pet!” Twilight protested. That’s the third or fourth time someone’s said that. Wonderful.“And honestly, I’m not even supposed to be out here. The only reason I’m here with them is so Milky Way could find me a way home. That’s all!”
Uranus seemed surprised. After considering her first question, she asked, “How are you even talking?”
Seriously!? Maybe we won’t be as close as I thought. “Is that really the point right now?” Twilight shot back. “We’ve got Black Hole on the loose, doing who knows what, and you’re wondering about me!?”
“Gah, very well.” Uranus sat back down on her planet. “Have you all come to me for more information on Black Hole?” she asked them. “What I’ve read to you isn’t be the only thing I have about him.”
“Not exactly, but thanks anyway.” Twilight turned to Milky Way. “Show her what we have so far.”
Milky Way pulled out the planetoid fragments. Uranus got up and leaned in closer. “I’d say you’ve done quite a bit in eight hours,” she said. “It’s still not complete, not from what I can tell, but I appreciate the haste. Wait,” she said. “Is this one broken?” She held up the clay-repaired fragment.
Mars blushed. “It’s a long story.”
“Regardless,” Milky Way said, “we thought you might have another of these pieces – which is why we came here.”
“Right, but. . . all of you? Together?” Uranus kept pointing at her peers.
“They insisted they all help us,” Twilight said. “And considering how much effort went into imprisoning Black Hole the first time, the help is truly appreciated.” This was meant more for them than Uranus.
“I’m not sure if I do have any fragments here,” Uranus told Twilight, “but considering how small they are, you’re welcome to check here. How do you usually work?”
Twilight grinned. Showtime. “I’m glad you asked!” She lit her horn – prompting an “Is that bioluminescent?” comment from Uranus – and aimed it at her planet. “I’m going to use my magic to search below the clouds here,” she said. “If it’s anything like the last two gas giants we were at – ”
“Actually,” Uranus interrupted, “mine is an ice giant. Not nearly as much gas as, say, Saturn.”
Saturn rolled her eyes. She looked like she was about to say something, but didn’t – not through her mouth, nor through her phone.
Uranus shot her a glare. “In any case,” she said, “you don’t have that much of an atmosphere to look through – so I suggest taking your time to be thorough.”
“Got it, thanks!” Well, this should be a lot easier then. Twilight found a rather broad, if icy, surface beneath some moderately-dense cloud cover – so when she gave that a once-over, her horn went out. “Nothing,” she said. “Worth a try, I suppose. But that does leave your rings.”
“My rings? Oh!” Uranus looked up at her revolving bookshelf. “Actually, if there is a fragment here, it could very well be nestled inside one of those books.” She put a finger to her chin. “But I wonder which one?”
Oh yeah – now’s my big payoff.“I guess we’ll have to read them all to find it,” she said, with barely-veiled excitement. “Why don’t we get started right now, while we still have time?”
Save for Twilight and Uranus, everyone groaned at the unicorn’s prospective. “Oh, come on!” Mercury in particular said.
But neither Twilight nor Uranus were perturbed by the reaction. “Like Twilight said,” Uranus said, “what time can we spare? Milky Way says he’s been free for eight hours now, but sixteen hours is still not a lot of time. We’ll get to searching, all of us, but I ask – do be careful with them. Oh, and Twilight,” she added to the unicorn, “please don’t use your teeth on the spine if you can avoid it.”
Use my magic. Easy enough. “Got it!” she told her. Without another word, Twilight grabbed a book in her telekinetic grasp from the revolving shelf. She noted the others grabbing books as well, all with varying degrees of reluctance, on a spectrum from Uranus to Mercury. She glanced at the title of the book she had pulled out: Joannis Kepplerí Harmonicés mundí librí V. Huh, she thought, never seen something like this before. She opened it and started reading.
Or tried to, at least. This book was all in Latin. Though she could follow along with the illustrations, they were very sparse. “Ugh,” she muttered to herself, giving up and simply flipping through the pages without a thought to the content – careful, she reminded herself, this book looks very old. Don’t want to damage it. But alas, she came up empty-hooved, so she shelved it and grabbed another one.
This one was titled The Art of War – at least, that’s what the cover said. The interior was wholly unreadable to her, even moreso than the Harmonicés mundí. How does Uranus understand all this? Twilight had to ask herself. Equestria doesn’t have anything like these. . . pictures as writing, I guess. She shrugged, shelved it, and moved on.
Here in front of her was a collection of “Rubáiyát” – written by one Omar Khayyám. This time, the interior was easy for her to understand – they were all quatrains, with every line save for the third rhyming. This looks like something the Moon would appreciate, Twilight thought. But then, she’s probably written a bookful of these herself without ever hearing of it before.
As Twilight browsed through the book, in her imagination she found herself in what she thought was an enclosed garden in Saddle Arabia. A loaf of bread, a jug of wine, and a distant song to set her mood. I could see how Uranus could enjoy this – I certainly do! One verse in particular – the twenty-third, about a third of the way through – was bookmarked, which caught her attention:

Sounds ominous, Twilight thought. But then, Black Hole is arguably a worse fate – one where not even dust will exist. I wonder how the others are doing with their reading.
“Hey Twilight!”
Speak of Discord. . . . Mercury’s voice penetrated Twilight’s concentration. She looked up at her. “What is it?” she asked.
“Watch this!” Mercury took the book she grabbed and shook it. Nothing came out of it, but that didn’t discourage Mercury from following up with “We don’t need to actually read her books to find the fragment – just shake ’em and it’ll fall out eventually. Now c’mon, you’ve wasted enough time already!”
What! Really? “And if it should fall through the clouds?” Twilight asked, tapping the surface of the planet. “What then?”
“You can yank it back out, can’t you?” Mercury shelved that book, grabbed the next one, and gave it a good shake spine-up.
Well, I suppose she does have a point. Twilight picked up her Rubáiyát and followed Mercury’s lead – nothing. Still, a good book to return to eventually. She shelved it and, with her magic, grabbed The Art of War. After a good shake, nothing fell out, though the she thought she could hear the binding starting to undo itself. She shelved it quickly before Uranus could notice the damage.
Just before Twilight could check the Harmonicés mundí, Uranus came up behind her. “Need a little more help?” she asked the unicorn.
“Uranus!” she said. “I thought you’d still be flipping through your books more carefully.”
“I relented to Mercury eventually,” Uranus confessed. “All I asked was that she and the other girls go through my library gently.” They looked over to see Mercury being a bit rougher than Twilight would’ve preferred. Who else but the one made for speed would go as fast as that? Twilight considered. “Anyway,” Uranus continued, “we started doing that several minutes ago, but you must’ve been absorbed within something good if you only just now noticed!” She giggled.
“Yeah,” Twilight conceded, “it was this Rubáiyát. Mostly because it was the first one I could actually understand.”
“Potestne loquére Latíné?” Uranus asked her. At Twilight’s confusion, she brushed it off. “That’s okay, I need some more practice myself. Anyway, would you sift through, say, the next two dozen books? I’ll be over here if you need me.”
“I’ll do better than that,” Twilight asked. “Watch this!” With her magic, she seized that many books and shook them all out at the same time.
To say Uranus was dumbstruck would be putting it lightly. “Was that how you’ve been working this entire time?” she asked Twilight.
The unicorn nodded.
“Can you. . . I don’t know, automate it?” Uranus followed up. “Make the books check themselves?”
“Hmm. . . .” Add a temporary animacy spell to one of these books – unshelve, shake down, reshelve, pass the spell on – “That actually sounds feasible,” she said. “Good thinking. I could actually check them all by myself – and should the piece fall within your planet’s atmosphere, I can easily search through it.”
“I’ll get the others out of your way, if you want,” she said.
“That’ll work,” Twilight said. “Give them a break as well.”
“Oh, really?” Mercury said, apparently having overheard. She reshelved the book she was holding. “Sounds good to me – good luck, Twilight!”
As the girls put away their work, Twilight lit her horn and started “writing” an impromptu animacy spell for the books. After a moment, she cast it upon the next book in the revolving shelf, and watched it carefully.
That book took on a violet glow of its own, despite Twilight not having her horn lit. It came out of the shelf by its own accord, flipped forward, and the pages furled to the planet below. It then went back onto the shelf, then the glow shifted to the next one. Just as I planned, Twilight thought. “I’ll keep an eye on what falls out of them,” she told Uranus. “You just keep your shelf rotating, got it?”
“Very well!” Uranus soon found that the books miraculously kept in pace with the shelf’s movements, so that it would always be perfectly shelved. She kept a hand on the shelf, spinning it incrementally, with the unicorn watching carefully beneath it, as book after book one at a time went through the same process, almost like clockwork.
Which started to test Mercury’s patience once again. “Ugh, can we get a move-on?” she asked. “Can’t you just do a few more of that spell, Twilight?”
“I’d rather I didn’t lose my concentration, thank you,” Twilight asked. Once more, with laser-like intensity, she turned back to the current task. The cycle continued without her further interference – books shaking themselves free of any detritus, Uranus moving her shelf to keep up, ticking along like a clock, but with nothing ever tumbling out of them for a long time.
Twilight was moments away from dozing off from boredom when she heard a new, unfamiliar sound, of something solid moving along pages. “There it is!” she cried. She quickly cast a telekinetic net beneath the fragment – bit was too late, as it had slipped through her grasp. She sighed. “Thought I could save us some trouble,” she told Uranus. “Guess I’ll have to do this the hard way.”
Fortunately, “the hard way” was not that hard. It was obviously not the first time Twilight looked through Uranus’s planet, and though she had not completely memorized its surface, finding the piece with her magic was a relatively simple task. After finding an unfamiliar projection at the planet’s north pole, she grabbed it and pulled it free from its considerable gravitational grasp. “I’ve got it at last,” she announced to the others. “But is it finally enough?”
“Why don’t you try fitting the pieces together?” Uranus asked her.
Milky Way took Uranus’s cue and presented the other pieces they found together. In her magic, Twilight was able to fit them all together for the first time – which still left a few gaps. “Not yet,” she said, “but we’re almost through.” She handed all the pieces to Milky Way, and turned to the Sun. “Who else does this system have?”
“Out further away would be Neptune,” the Sun responded. “She’s Uranus’s twin sister, but you really can’t tell by meeting her.”
“Don’t remind me about that,” Uranus said. She then sighed. “I truly wish she would take her studies more seriously. Such wasted potential!” She shook her head. “No, I really shouldn’t say such an insensitive thing. Don’t repeat that, please.”
“Even so,” the Sun said, “we’ve got Neptune and one more planet to visit. So far, each one of us has exactly one piece of the planetoid, so let’s hope that trend continues.”
“Even if I have to dig it out of two more giant planets,” Twilight added. Because that’s certainly worked out well for us so far.
“If it makes you feel better,” Uranus told Twilight, “Neptune’s is also an ice giant.”
Twilight nodded. Yes, that does work out well for me.
“So,we ready to go?” Milky Way asked.
Mercury didn’t say anything – she simply took off on her skates to the next outlying world. The Sun rolled her eyes, and simply said “Let’s go, then,” before they took off as well – but not before Twilight climbed onto Milky Way’s shoulder, as usual.
“Io! Europa! Ganymede! Callisto!” Jupiter called out behind them. “It’s time to go!”
A moment later, Jupiter’s beloved pets jetted right up to her side. “You’ve all been behaving so well,” she told them. “How about a trip to the beach? Does that sound good?”
Judging by the sounds they all made – even Europa the Bunny, who was normally stoic and silent – that particular decision was settled. Eight girls, four pets, and one unicorn stayed the course to the next world over, to see Uranus’s twin sister.