//------------------------------// // Chapter 2 Travelers // Story: The Meaning of Eternity // by LightningStruckTower //------------------------------// Chapter 2 Travelers The ship slid into orbit about the planet. The captain strode to the viewscreens and eyed the massive rock before him. “Can I get a tracking signature on the target?” he asked. “Yes sir.” A few moments passed as a lieutenant did a trace scan, searching for the trail of radioactivity left by the objective. “Sir, it would seem the bolide’s energy trail ends here. All signatures indicate it collided with the planet, but when I ran a surface scan, I couldn’t find it.” “Nothing can ever be easy,” the captain replied with a sigh as returned to his chair. Pressing a button on the arm, he addressed the ship. “All decks! This is the captain speaking! It would seem our target has chosen this time to vanish completely. I want science teams and scouting teams planet-side yesterday! Teams assemble in the hangar!” The captain then made his way down to the hangar to brief the teams. As he walked, he couldn’t help but worry that they had lost it. The other vessels tasked by the Imperator had encountered some measure of difficulty in completing their objective, and possibility that the meteor was destroyed on impact, or worse, slipped through a space-bridge was an all too unsettling prospect. After about ten minutes he found himself in the hangar, looking at fifty of the best specialists on board, all donned in full exploratory combat gear. “Alright! Your duty is to either locate a traceable signature for the objective, or find the objective itself! You all know the protocols! As soon as you find something worth reporting, report it directly to the bridge and await orders! Is there anything I should know before you go?” A single individual stepped out of line. “There is, sir. We ran some initial planet scans from the engine room, and cross-referenced them with data collected by Eurisko. We hypothesize that the planet is hollow.” “Based on what?” “Well, the planet is simply too large in diameter for the gravitational pull it is applying to the ship. This probably means nothing, but it was an interesting find.” “Thanks for the report, son. Dismissed!” It was nearly three days before the captain received more than a status report from the ground teams. “Ground teams to bridge.” “This is the bridge. Report.” “We discovered a cavern about sixty five degrees west of the ship’s shadow point. Inside is.. what looks like a command center, but the technology follows no known configurations. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the most advanced technology ever created.” “Ok, continue.” “Captain, it would seem we were right about the planet being hollow. However, we expected a thick crust, and a hollow core. The world you see is only about eight miles thick, and heavily reinforced.” “Heavily reinforced?” “It’s a construct, sir. A shield, serving the same purpose as the ones we have constructed around our critical holdings. However, this one seems to have been designed as a camouflage, which explains why the planet is undiscovered. On the inside of the shield is the actual planet, which seems to be harboring several tier seven… sorry, pre-industrial civilizations. Whoever built the shield was trying to protect the life forms inside from discovery, and barring that, attack.” “That’s all well and good, but have you found the object?” “Scans from within the deeper reaches of the cavern picked up traces on the inside of the construct. It entered the construct and collided with the actual planet.” “Good, anything else?” “Yes. We found an operable passage to the inner world, but it’s too small for any vehicles.” The captain reflected for a moment upon these revelations. It was highly unlikely that the denizens of this sub planet could have missed a meteor impacting their home, and if they were intelligent at all, they would already be studying it. At least, that’s what he’d be doing. “Ground teams, stand by.” “Yes sir.” “Eurisko?” The AI answered the captain’s call, his holographic representation projected from the chair’s arm. “Any ideas?” “Thousands, captain. Foremost among them, however, is that we establish contact. It’d be best if we don’t go in with a tremendous display of military power.” “How then?” “Send a H.E.R.M.E.S. unit with a cloaking module. Since it is astronomically unlikely that these beings speak anything close to Standard, I can keep the module hidden close by to gather enough vernacular data to establish a translator algorithm. Once that is done, I can relay to them any message you wish to deliver.” The captain retreated to his thoughts once more, but was unable to produce an idea better. “Ground team?” “Yes captain?” “We’re sending a herald bot. Open the gate and let it through when it reaches you. I’ll contact you with further instructions. Bridge out.” The captain watched, deep in thought, as the small orb sped off to the ground team’s location. ______________________________________________________________________________ The object had remained in its hovering position for almost five days now, and the princesses had ordered a veritable army of people to come study it, commanded the girls to remain and required them to keep their elements on at all times. There was now a small village of tents erected in the Everfree forest, as the multitude of magicians and scientists probed the object and royal guardsmen patrolled the area. Needless to say everyone was at their wit’s end for some reason. “If that thing don’t do somethin’ real interestin’ real soon, Ah’m leavin,’” Applejack declared, punctuating the statement with a hoof stomp. “Ah know Ah ain’t usually the impatient one, but fer pony’s sake, this is ridiculous!” “Come on Applejack, this is exciting!” Twilight responded. “An entirely unknown object has presented itself to us! Imagine what we could learn!” “Yeah!” chirped Pinkie. “There might even be aliens!” “I’m with Applejack,” Rainbow spouted predictably. “Call me when aliens show up, but watching a floating rock all the time is boring to the max!” “And besides, we ain’t even sure there are aliens. Ah’m inclined to doubt that some green, bug-eyed ponies are gonna come outta that box. In the meantime, Ah want some answers” Applejack left the group and walked over to a group of scholars, in the hope of coaxing information from them, or at least a reason why she shouldn’t leave. “Excuse me fellas, but would you mind tellin’ me what yah’ve learned from that thing?” They looked at each other before turning away and looking over to their superior and beckoned him over. AJ’s patient wore slightly thinner. He trotted over and exchanged hushed words with the group. Then he turned his attention to the irritable mare. “Luckily ma’am, you are among the few ponies Celestia has deemed to keep ‘in the loop’ as it were. Unfortunately, the knowledge we have been able to glean from it has been little, and the only certainty that we have is we have no previous knowledge of anything like it.” “Ya said ya had a little more knowledge than me. Ah already know that there hasn’t been anythin’ like it before,” AJ retorted flatly, not caring about the looks of indignation the younger scientists were giving her. “Well, uhm.. The metal it is made of is completely unique, as its resilience and ‘flowing’ appearance aren’t like any terrestrial metals.” “Terrestrial?” “It roughly means ‘of this planet.’ Also, all of the magic using ponies here, including the three princesses and Discord, even though he’s been really uncooperative, have admitted to sensing a presence within the object. With luck there may be an extraterr.. uh.. alien inside! But, that is all we know as of yet.” Applejack let out an annoyed sigh. That wasn’t anywhere near what she wanted hear, but she had to admit she hadn’t expected any more details. As she made her way back to her tent, a thought occurred to her. She had noticed that the scientists had barely interacted with the box aside from building a small scaffold up to it, only dropping a chemical or two onto it or tapping it for some reaction. Though their caution was warranted, she felt it was time to push the boundaries. She angled towards the crater, and crossed the planks up to the object. When she reached it, she did the one thing that could vent her frustration. She bucked it. When no sound came from the object as she hit it, she glanced over her withers to assess the damage. Her hooves met solid… air? Even as she watched, small, glowing blue-white particles drifted from the cracks in the metal. They moved like water through the air, as if a stream of water was separated into droplets. The specks of light wrapped themselves around her body and gently lifted her into the air. At this point, everyone had noticed her situation and was galloping to the scaffolding in the hopes of aiding her. The object emitted a gentle, deep pulse, and erected a barrier around itself that even the princesses couldn’t breach. Strangely, she felt no fear as her body was turned to face the box, and yet another tendril of the bizarre specks drifted toward her. As it grew close, it split in two, with one branch reaching for her necklace, the other for her forehead. They made contact. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she passed out. Sometime later, she felt, her eyes fluttered open. But she was not in the Everfree forest anymore. She was looking down upon a multitude of… beings, ones that defied description. They were formless, but flickered through a million forms all at once. She knew she couldn’t have counted their number, but she also somehow knew that a thousand and one specters were before her. Just as she came to this realization, a voice spoke, the voice of someone she couldn't see. She did not understand the Command given, but the group did, and without ado, they passed through a hole, and she followed. She found herself in an infinite void, which contained only a black murk. The beings now had definite form, and a strange one at that. They were tall, monkeyish and had no fur and little hair, which came as flowing manes atop their heads and small patches above the eyes. Their eyes were small, similar to their pointed ears. Most notably, however, were the giant wings each creature had as well as the tails. It would seem the taller, more muscular beings had tails like panthers, but the smaller, slighter ones had tails like ponies. After gauging their new appearance the beings dispersed, and for a great while explored the darkness, only to find nothing beyond the tangible darkness. Eventually, the beings reconvened, and among them the largest and brightest stepped forth. In his hand, he produced a sliver of light, which he drew across his arm, creating a cut in his flesh. Though the wound healed quickly, he was able to pull from it a drop of blood, which floated in the nothingness before his eyes. All around him, his brothers and sisters did the same. At his gesture, all of the blood coalesced into a single orb of fluid. He then pulled a similarly sized sphere of the ever-present black dust up next to the slowly rotating blood. The beings then stared intently at the two masses, silently pondering their significance. After a time the second largest and brightest being approached them and waved his hand at the masses, separating them further into several spheres. The blood became four spheres, one red, one white, one grey and one yellow, while the dust became hundreds of small orbs. This intrigued the beings, so the second waved his hand again. And again the orbs separated into many smaller components. They repeated this process many times and at one point, there were tens of thousands of spheres, but then the spheres began to merge as they separated, with similarities appearing among seemingly unrelated groups. The number of separate spheres dwindled until only two hundred were before them. At this time, the beings took small pieces of each group and again separated them, causing an explosion which they quickly contained. Before them were three new spheres, that existed in all of the others. Again, with great effort they separated, revealing thirty new distinct forms. When they broke the thirty, what came was an expulsion of heat and light, identical to the blades the beings had cut themselves with, and nothing remained. The beings paused to glance among each other, before they initiated a series of experiments on the previous two hundred piles. They soon learned that the materials that comprised the two hundred were strongly pulled to each other, and that with enough heat and light, an infinitely replenishing source of heat and light could be made. They also learned that all things tended to drift together, in an effort to become one, but this could be affected so that a large mass may have smaller masses drifting around it in circles. With this knowledge, they dispersed once more, and pulled the blackness together into small balls, lit them and created flaming spheres so vast that to be near them would make them appear flat. Then, they pulled the tangible shadow into different balls, and drew great bands of star-fire to lash across their surfaces without igniting them. They turned to stone, and to Applejack, they seemed to be gigantic moons. After they had made many stars with several moons each, they assembled together again. This time, they all looked at her, and she snapped awake, to the world of her friends. She was completely surrounded by ponies on the scaffolding, all bearing looks of fear. “Oh my gosh, Applejack, are you okay!?!?” Twilight cried, helping her to her hooves. “Ah’m fine, Ah’m okay,” reassured Applejack. “How long was Ah out?” “Only about twenty seconds,” said Fluttershy. “When those lights touched your head and you fell asleep, the barrier disappeared and it laid you down.” “However, they were probably the longest twenty seconds of our lives, darling,” added a worried Rarity. Applejack looked around at her friends, each one of them worried, and felt ashamed for her brash action against the box. When its light touched her, she was helpless, as was everyone else. What if it hadn’t been so benevolent? She dared not to entertain the thought. She blinked several times and breathed deeply in an attempt to bring her mind back completely to the Everfree forest, but her thoughts still wandered across the void given light by the power of those strange creatures. Her face must have betrayed her absence, because a hoof found its way to her shoulder. “Applejack, are you really alright?” Twilight asked quietly “Well, Ah ain’t any worse… or better really,” Applejack admitted with trepidation. “Just different.” “What do you mean?” “When that thing touched my head, Ah saw somethin’, like a dream, or a vision.” Her surroundings seemed to explode as everyone around her began shooting off questions at a mile-a-minute pace. “Be silent.” Applejack’s verbal assailants stopped, some looking as though they had literally choked on their words. Everyone turned to see who had spoken so calmly, yet with great underlying urgency. Discord stood tall, eyeing Applejack intently. “What did you see, my dear?” Applejack hesitated briefly, before diving into a full recount of everything she had seen. True to her Element, she kept nothing to herself. As she spoke she, couldn’t help but notice the expressions everyone bore. Her friends, and the majority of the researchers looked awed yet skeptical, the two Princess appeared lost in thought and Discord wore a look of silent triumph. “Ah swear, Ah’ve never seen anything so small as the bits in those balls, and Ah ain’t never seen anything so enormous as those giant flames. Ya oughta’ve seen when they made those moons! They pulled long rivers of fire and light from the big fires, like hydra heads, that they whipped the rocks with. It was amazin’!” “That’s all well and good,” a researcher interjected. “But what could her vision mean?” “It wasn’t a vision.” Discord uttered flatly. “Whaddaya mean?” Applejack countered defiantly. “What was it then? Or are ya implyin’ Ah didn’t see anythin’?” “I am not implying anything, Applejack,” Discord reassured her. “I am merely correcting any misunderstandings. This was not some lowly fortuneteller’s self-induced hallucination.” “Then what?” the researcher blurted. “It was a memory,” Discord stated. “What she saw was an accurate recording of distant history. She saw the making of all that we know, or at least the earlier bit of that undertaking. Come my ponies. There is much I have not told even Celestia, and it is time we talked.” ______________________________________________________________________________ Two days after deploying the H.E.R.M.E.S. unit was deployed, the captain received a notification. “Yes, Eurisko?” “It took longer than I expected, captain, but I have located the crash site. The natives, which seem to be small equines, have established a rudimentary quarantine around the objective, and are attempting to understand it.” “Anything of particular interest happen?” “One creature caused the object, a large box, to react and it gave ‘her’ a vision. This caused a great stir, before a particularly bizarre looking creature claimed knowledge of the box’s origins. On another note, I have written a downloadable translation algorithm for the species. Due to the technical source of my data, my algorithm offers a relatively broad vocabulary.” The captain sat back in his chair, contemplating this new information. These objects were extremely old, according to the Guardians, so whatever knowledge the ‘bizarre creature’ has must be old folk tales, or something similarly inconclusive. “Captain, do you still wish to establish contact?” “Yes, Eurisko, give them my message.”