//------------------------------// // Chapter Two // Story: Station Thirteen // by Jarvy Jared //------------------------------// Compared to the twelve other observatories all dedicated to the ancient art of stargazing, Station Thirteen was small, consisting of only a few curving corridors, rooms, and department areas, along with its obsidian-lens telescope. But that did not mean it was unimpressive. Maintenance of both the telescope and the other facilities required a good number of employees. Their occupations varied. Engineers, electricians, opticians, computer scientists, and—of course—astronomers populated the site, the stars in their eyes and the telescope in their minds. There were other personnel involved, too, who did not directly work on the telescope or the many machines connected to it; these included the kitchen staff, the cleaning crew, and, of course, Logistics. All told, roughly fifty to eighty individuals worked at the station, making it one of the least staffed out of the whole bunch. When Cypress had arrived a month ago, he hadn’t expected quite so many ponies. Like an infinitely re-arranging quilt of multi-colored sheets, they trotted through Station Thirteen, coats and horns and wings flashing with every order or direction given. He had been enthralled by such a display, and had thought, in spite of Peppy’s coolness, he had found a place of belonging. Time, however, had proven otherwise. It was true that the ponies here were friendly, but there remained some kind of barrier between him and them, erected at the unconscious level. It didn’t take long for him to come to the likely culprit: among the pegasi, unicorns, and earth ponies, he was the station’s only kirin. His scales, lengthy tail, and fangs set him far too apart than he would have preferred. Work colleagues remained just that: colleagues. And though the station’s occupants regarded him with polite looks and smiles, he wished they didn’t; for how well-intentioned such politeness was, all it did was make him feel more alone than ever. It was like a mark that burned only for him, and which he had to bear in a silence that seemed to ironically mirror that which had, for generations, kept the kirins complacent and isolated.  This was why Cypress sat at one of the cafeteria’s round tables alone, chewing on a soy-spinach sandwich.  The hours spent in the storeroom had made him miss the main course, and the kitchen only had this in supply.  Those hours had also made him miss the lunch rush, and aside from a few stragglers and kitchen crew, the cafeteria was mostly empty. He was unused to this. Normally, it was a crowded, noisy room, whose jam-packed nature allowed him to think he was not as alone as he felt. The clamor served as white noise, permitting this fantasy. Today, however, the silence—as well as the lingering thought about those discrepancies, not to mention the poor sandwich—distracted him. The thinning of the crowd meant that, from where he sat and stewed, he could see through the room’s massive display windows. Station Thirteen had been built on a remote mountain, far from the rest of Equestria, and the rocky landscape rose and fell in harsh, impressive lines, like platoons of foot soldiers marching into the empty horizon. Beyond that, the sun was at its highest point in the sky; night was but a distant dream. In a few short hours, though, the light would fall, darkness would come, and the world would shrink to reveal a canvas of existence that could only be measured in infinities.  Melancholy seems a fact of life for those who work in remote environments, and for Cypress, this was no different. Staring out at that landscape and imagining just how vast was the space beyond the world, he could not help but feel small. His loneliness only added to that feeling.   “Pardon me, Master Cypress. Would you mind moving your tail?” “Hmm?” Cypress swallowed a tasteless lump before he turned around. “Oh. Sure thing, Roccu.” Roccu lacked a proper head with which to nod, but Cypress got the sense of one, anyway, from the way its front-facing LED lights flashed green. The Robotics Operating Cleaning and Container Unit—Roccu, for short—was a bit of an anomaly, not just on Station Thirteen, but, in all of Equus’ observatories. Some mad unicorn with a penchant for invention and an “eccentric” and “loose” understanding of form over function had designed it some decades ago, foreseeing that Equestria’s advancement towards the stars would surely bring about levels of uncleanliness never before seen, even as space flight was still a nubile commodity About the size of a pony, the unit resembled a black tortoise shell in shape, with a pair of swiveling, circular brushes designed to process what scraps its arm-like, metal appendages could grab. Inside, a voice box mimicked the voice, though thankfully not the personality, of the unicorn inventor’s former lover, a Canterlot noble with some decent standing who, shortly after the invention had been patented and started being manufactured, had absconded to Saddle Arabia with a court harlequin. The inventor hadn’t the time to change out the voice before a peak magical accident made them unable to care for themselves. Such an accident also meant that only a few of the robots were ever made, dispersed to the various realms of the Equestrian space odyssey. Station Thirteen was one such realm. When Cypress had been brought to Station Thirteen, he was surprised that this piece of obscure history was cleaning the halls, roving around on tiny wheels and greeting every creature as “Master” or “Mistress.” He was even more surprised to learn that, despite the support from the station’s cleaning crew, Roccu still cleaned most of the station on its own. It never complained—though Cypress wondered if it even could.   He watched Roccu grab and process some napkins that had blown off the table before Cypress had arrived. He did so diligently, obsessively, advancing very little across the floor, until one sector was completely cleared. If the robot had been programmed to, it might have started humming. But the lack of a face made it difficult to determine what, if anything, the robot felt at any moment. Sometimes, when Cypress had passed Roccu in the corridors, he thought to ask if it was happy doing what it did, alone—if it was satisfied with handling the massive station all by itself.  He never did, though. In his experience, to ask that of some creature was to invite the same question onto the one asking the question, and he doubted many were equipped to reply.  “If you don’t mind my saying, Master Cypress,” Roccu said, its voice box crackling, “you were one-point-one-five hours late to lunch. Why is that?” “Do you normally keep track of everycreature’s schedules?” Cypress asked. “Apologies. My programming actualizes me to consider the average times this station’s occupants enter a room to allow me a nominal schedule for optimized cleaning. I had picked up on your schedule quite unintentionally.” “Well, I’m glad I’m not that special.” Roccu continued to sweep over a spot, and it took Cypress a second to realize it was waiting for an answer—the omission was so strangely equine-like, he smiled a little to himself. “Ah, it’s nothing that important,” Cypress chose to say. “Peppy just decided to assign me some grunt work. Digitization.” “An act you are no doubt displeased by.” “I wouldn’t say that.” “Of course not. Not out loud. Digitization of some old paper records, I would assume?” “Yeah. How’d you know?” Roccu’s lights turned a yellow-white. “What else would you be digitizing?” “Ah, right.” Cypress shook his head. “Well, anyway, it’s just a lot of work, you know? Spent the whole morning at it. I’m kinda exhausted.” “Then it is good you came out to take a break.” “Sure. Then I’ve got to go back and bury my head in it. All that’s on top of what I usually do, too. It’s a lot. Say, you ever think about using your, uh, scheduling algorithm to help out in Logistics?” It was a joke, but surprisingly, Roccus took a few moments to answer, like it was struggling to formulate a proper response. “I’m sorry, Master Cypress. But my programming does not let me do many tasks outside of my basic function.” Cypress waved the excuse aside. “Ah, that’s fine. Don’t get your circuits in a fritz, really.” Cypress fell silent, prodding at his sandwich, no longer really feeling hungry. Roccu remained next to him, also quiet aside from the gentle buzzing and whirring coming from under its chassis. Cypress flipped the sandwich in his magic as though he hoped to find something more appealing on the other side. One of the lettuce leaves slipped out and fell onto the floor.  “Oops. Sorry, Roccu.” Roccu was already picking it up. “This digitization your supervisor has set you on,” it said. Under the mechanical whirring of its voice, there was some other implication, but Cypress only noticed it, or thought he noticed it, for a second. “Has it anything to do with a storeroom?” Cypress glanced at the robot. “It might,” he said cautiously. “What do you know about a storeroom?” Roccu took the leaf and deposited it in the trash nearby. “I do not know much. I merely heard about it from Peppy in passing.” “When was that? I only learned about it yesterday.” “Oh, I’m not quite sure,” Roccu said. “She seemed to be quite bothered by it. It was most curious. I’d never seen somepony get so worked up over the prospect of work.” It paused, then the lights flashed a pinkish-red. “Well, I suppose other than you.” Cypress grunted. He was starting to think Peppy had done nothing but exaggerate the room. “Guess that cat’s out of the bag. Yeah, she had me working in there.” His mind returned to the missing items, and he fell silent again. “If you’re finished with that sandwich, I can throw it out for you,” Roccu said. “Huh. Oh. Thanks, Roccu.” Cypress lifted the sandwich with his magic and placed it in one of Roccu’s extensions. As the robot carefully placed it in the nearby trash, Cypress started. “Hmm? Yes, Master Cypress?” He hesitated, thinking of the supplies. Then, he said, “No, nothing, sorry. I’ll let you get at it.” The lights sequenced again—a robotic, faceless attempt at a nod, if Cypress was sure of anything. Roccu rolled away, and Cypress stared at the table, thinking.