//------------------------------// // Chapter 10: Redemption // Story: Celestia Sleeps In // by Admiral Biscuit //------------------------------// Celestia Sleeps In Chapter 10—Redemption Admiral Biscuit Luna stretched out on her bed, rolling from side-to-side to make a small depression. The castle staff always managed to get her bed perfectly flat every night, and every morning she felt a slight rebellious joy at undoing their work. She kicked a few small bits of cloud into a lump with her hind hooves, relishing the slight feeling of her magic—unencumbered by her decorative shoes—as it moved the cloudstuff around. Finally satisfied, she rolled on her back, and entertained herself for a few minutes tossing a pillow into the air with her horn, then kicking it back with her hind hooves. She’d once pretended to be asleep, only to assault her staff with a barrage of pillows when they entered, but they had not been amused. Even Celestia had yelled at her for it. She sighed. Sometimes being a princess wasn’t fun at all. Everypony thought she should be serious all the time, but she occasionally just wanted to unwind. The day hadn’t been a total waste, though. She had seriously rattled Celestia with her lie about de-feathering a pegasus, and she had no doubt that her sister was frantically searching for the imaginary victim. She would figure out before too long that Luna hadn’t been in the castle all night, and then she would move on to researching blocking rings. If it hadn’t been fraught with danger, Luna would have simply slipped one over Celestia’s horn. It was difficult to imagine what might come of that, though. She certainly didn’t want to illustrate her point by having the sun fly out of control. Luna had been sympathetic to the showmare from the moment she’d arrived at the castle in chains. She had surrendered on her own, once the full realization of what she’d done in Ponyville had sunk in, and the courts had been merciful as a result. Luna had intervened, manipulating the magistrate to sentence her to the dungeons under Canterlot castle. She’d wanted to keep a close eye on Beatrix. From the very beginning, she’d been trying to get into Trixie’s dreams. Something was blocking her, and she’d been unable to find out what. She’d spent months, skulking through the archives after hours, researching very obscure branches of magic. She could see the taint of corruption—she could see the subtle changes around Trixie’s cutie mark, one of the surest signs. They were not visible to the naked eye yet, but they would be, and they would never fade. It was a condition Luna was quite familiar with. When Celestia had brought up the subject of teaching Twilight different magics, Luna had jumped at the chance to have the showmare teach her. She knew that Beatrix had powerful magic, and she wanted to observe for herself if there was any dark influence in her magic, or if the effects of the amulet were finally wearing off. Sadly, they were not, but they did not seem to have been progressing, either, although the fringe of fur just above her hooves had begun to darken. That was when Luna began to become really curious. She had dug up all the books on the nature of Equestrian magic that she could find. The final piece of the puzzle was provide by a treatise written by no other than Lyra’s Neighponese maestro, who taught hybrid ponies how to use their secondary abilities to duel. Since the showmare was an earth pony and unicorn hybrid, she was influenced by the leylines both through her horn and her hooves. She had been appalled to discover that Beatrix was wearing a blocking ring—she remembered that sinks had been used before unification, and wasn’t sure what had changed in the intervening years. Luna flung a pillow at the canopy in frustration. She wanted to help Beatrix, but she wasn’t sure how. Despite her high station, she could hardly countermand a legal order—Equestrian law was quite clear on that point. There were only certain rare instances where she could intervene at all, and so far none of the legal requirements had been met. She could try and invoke a mercy clause, but there was no case law on her side. Unless something changed, Luna’s hooves were hobbled. Once again, Lyra mentally kicked herself. She’d been so distracted by sampling Dale’s food, she’d let another learning opportunity slip through her hooves. Both of them could have been naming their foods as they ate them—but that opportunity was long past. She slid her chalkboard back over, wiping the earlier notes clean. She began by writing the name of the sandwich cookie on the board. Learning from the books was useful, but maybe it was time to start with things he actually had here. “Oreo?” Dale looked at her curiously. He got out of his chair and walked over to a bag tied from a tree. A few moment of work, and he had lowered the bag and was rummaging around inside. Before long, he had returned with a blue tube. “Lyra wants Oreos?” She shook her head, making a waving-away motion with her hoof. “Lyra no Oreo.” She thought for a second. How to tell him that she wanted him to name things? There was a section like that in one of his Dick and Jane books. Lyra tapped a hoof to her breast. “It is Lyra.” She pointed to Dale. “It is not Lyra, it is Dale.” Pointing to the cookies, she stated, “It is not Lyra, it is not Dale, it is Oreo.” Finally, she pointed to her empty cup. “It is not Lyra, it is not Dale, it is not Oreo. It is?” Dale seemed to get the idea. “Cup,” he said. “Cup,” she repeated back carefully. Dale wrote the word in his notebook, and she copied it down in her own, before telling him the Equus word. They repeated the process for all the rest of the items under the pavilion. Finally, Lyra pointed to her improvised seat. “Cooler,” Dale said. “See-oh-el-ee-em-eh-en,” she sounded out, tracing her hoof along the printing along the side. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t spelled anything like it sounded. “It’s not called a Coleman,” Dale said, struggling not to laugh. “No Coleman. Cooler. See-oh-oh-el-ee-ar.” He showed her the spelling in his notebook. “What Coleman?” Lyra was honestly confused. As if the disparity between the sound of the letters and the pronunciation wasn’t bad enough, objects had words printed on them which weren’t what they actually were. Unless, of course, its name was Coleman. It seemed an odd thing, to name an inanimate object—well, she’d named her plushies, but that was different; those were supposed to represent an animate object. She didn’t know Dale’s word for name, so she’d have to ask in a roundabout fashion. “Pony Lyra, human Dale, cooler Coleman?” Dale nodded, then made writing motions. He’d noticed that she hadn’t given him a word yet. I don’t even know what it is, she thought. “Lyra not know,” she confessed. Dale moved over to Coleman and twisted a latch, before lifting the lid. As soon as he did, its purpose became clear. “Icebox,” she told him. Terrain ahead! Pull up! Calley instinctively pitched the nose of the Dauphin, twisting the throttle to keep the rotor speed up. He looked at the radio altimeter in bewilderment—just a moment ago, he’d been at two thousand feet, and now it was reading four hundred. It was easy to get disoriented in overcast weather, but there was no way he could have lost sixteen hundred feet of altitude in a few seconds. Plus, the helicopter seemed to be quickly gaining altitude. Cally was almost immediately pushed down in his seat by the climb, although the altimeter continued to register descent, before it suddenly spiked to twenty-thousand feet. The captain was also studying the gauges intently. He pointed to the weather radar, which appeared to have gone nuts. Random red blotches were appearing and disappearing from the screen. The two ensigns were wide-eyed in the back of the helicopter. Calley’s sudden maneuver had been entirely unexpected, and they were lucky they were strapped in. But when the robot said pull up, you didn’t ignore it. “Hold it here,” the captain muttered in the intercom. His voice came through oddly staticy. “Yes, sir.” He didn’t need to be told—while it was possible that there had been some sort of malfunction of the TAWS, there was also the very remote possibility that there actually had been something unseen in front of them.  “Tower, chopper sixty-two. We are about three miles off the shore of North Fox and our helicopter seems to have malfunctioned, do you copy?” The radio hissed petulantly in his ear. After a moment, the captain tried again, but there was still no response. “Calley, take her back towards the mainland.” “Back the way we came,” he said cheerfully, working the anti-torque pedals. “I don’t know what’s going on,” the captain muttered. “Weather radar’s on the fritz, radio’s out. I don’t believe the altimeter. I don’t know if you noticed, but the VOR’s twitchy, too. It shouldn’t be.” “Static? Maybe the rain’s doing something?” “It almost seems like jamming,” the captain said. “Remember that Piper we were looking for? She said she lost her radios, but then they started working again.” “I wonder if it’s connected to that weird purple light on the island?” “I don’t know.” The captain scratched his chin. “And, I don’t want to be the one to find out. What if we lose flight controls next? Or the engine quits? Maybe there’s nothing there at all, and we have a serious problem with the helicopter. I don’t want to be the one to find out which it is. Let’s head back towards base. Keep it slow. Let’s see if we can get under the clouds, too. Just in case the instruments flake out again.” He looked up towards the rotor. “Might not be a bad idea to run through the ditching checklist, just in case.” Dale put the geometry book on the table. He paused before opening it. He’d meant to review the book, since it had been quite a few years since he’d taken a geometry class, and he wasn’t sure he could remember any of the equations. True, they were spelled out in the book, but he still felt woefully unprepared. He couldn’t remember when he’d last used a geometric formula more complicated than calculating the area of a rectangle, but it probably wasn’t since high school. Even then, he’d privately wondered at the utility of it. Homeowner Bob has a lawn with dimensions x by y. What is the most efficient pattern to mow this lawn? Well, Homeowner Bob will probably just get on his lawnmower, crack open a beer, and mow until he’s done. He sure as heck isn’t going to calculate out the most efficient pattern on his kitchen table. I think I need to fortify myself with a little coffee before I get started. Dale grabbed his thermos and poured himself a cup of coffee. He noticed Lyra had a strangely amused look. He pointed to her cup, then the thermos. She nodded, so he filled her cup, too. They both took a moment to themselves, Dale slowly sipping from his cup, while Lyra lapped at her coffee, wiping her muzzle with a foreleg when she was finished. Here we go, he thought. “Geometry.” She copied the word, although she gave him no word in response. Remembering the cooler, he began to turn the pages—just long enough so that she could get an idea what the book was about. Seeing her blank look, his heart sank. Didn’t she know geometry? What kind of astronaut didn’t? But that wasn’t really fair; he hardly knew it himself, and here he was trying to teach it. Fortunately, when he reached the Pythagorean theorem, her ears flicked, and she smiled. She wrote a word on the chalkboard and pronounced it for him, drawing under it a right triangle, bisected circle, and a cylinder. Dale nodded absently, copying her word down. His original intention had been to just give her the book—she could pass it on to an engineer or whomever they had on the ship that would know these things—and it would be another sign of just how advanced human civilization was. Now he was having regrets—first, because she would no doubt want him to go through it like they had with every other book; second, because a distant part of his mind was reminding him that there was some speculation that there were more than just three dimensions. A lot of the geometric rules were discovered a long time ago—the Pythagorean theorem dated to ancient Greece, after all—and they might think that humanity hadn’t progressed past that point. There was a scene in one of the Star Trek movies where Scottie had called a keyboard ‘quaint,’—was it possible that they would be chuckling amongst themselves about humanity being stuck on only three dimensions? Upon reflection, he decided that they probably wouldn’t. Lyra had seemed fascinated by every book he’d shown her so far, and her books had also been—as far as he could tell—simplistic. She, or whoever was giving her supplies, had decided on easy books to begin with, given the difficulty of communication. Therefore, he could assume that they would imagine this was another simple book, just for the purposes of getting communications started. Turning back to the first page with a drawing, he began. “Square.” He traced his finger around the edge of the figure, just to be certain she knew what he was naming. There was nothing in the case law. It wasn’t surprising. Celestia had just skimmed it—to really review a millennia of cases would have taken her months—but none of the summaries mentioned blocking rings at all. It was so rare to even have a unicorn prisoner—she could count on one hoof the number of powerful unicorns they’d had to imprison in the last century. Each one of them had been powerful, and each one of them had done terrible things. One had nearly managed to start a war with the buffalo; she was part of the reason why the buffalo and Appleoosans didn’t quite see eye-to-eye. Celestia filed a quick mental note to make another attempt to set up an embassy: the last few attempts had been rebuffed, but perhaps Little Strongheart could talk her father around. Still, that didn’t solve her immediate problem. She really wanted a definitive answer before Luna woke. She had come to the conclusion that there had been no pegasus thrown off the balcony; it was just Luna’s in-your-muzzle way of presenting ideas. Methods learned in a bygone age. Celestia remembered when pegasi mothers pushed their foals off clouds to teach them to fly. Luna’s direct approach had worked, too: if she had simply said that blocking rings could be fatal to unicorns, Celestia probably would have nodded and not given the matter any thought for a few days; as it was, she had spent almost every moment of her free time doing research, and she hated research. She often felt guilty whenever she assigned research projects to her students. Twilight thrived on them, though—Cadance had had to drag the young unicorn out of libraries more than once. Celestia sighed. She was going to have to go to the restricted pre-unification wing of the archives. The wizened librarian that kept the records was suspicious of everypony—even Celestia. She had given the unicorn the job as an honorary retirement—since she seemed loath to accept any kind of pension—and instead of sleeping at her desk, as anypony else would have done, she ran the archives with a frightening presence, with no respect for authority whatsoever. There were whispered bets among the palace guards that she would eventually be found slumped over her desk, but Celestia doubted it—that mare would never do something as disorderly as die at her post. Lyra was embarrassed by how long it had taken her to realize that Dale’s book was about geometry. He had hardly stopped long enough on any page for her to figure out what the theme was, and his kind appeared to use both numbers and the alphabet to describe mathematical relationships, which was odd. It was the right triangle which had finally clued her in: the ponagorean theorem’s diagram was unmistakable for anything else. Right now, he was showing her a drawing of a circle. There was a line from the center to the edge, labeled with a tipped weak r. He seemed more interested in her name for the symbols, rather than the formula, but that made sense: the formulas she knew would probably be the same as the formulas Dale knew, since math was believed to be universal. Three rocks were three rocks, whether a pony had them or a griffon. “Archamare’s constant,” Lyra translated, pointing to the odd symbol. It looked like an aitch, but the crossbar had been raised and bowed. Advanced Equestrian math generally used the old Pegos symbols, since the Oceanic tribe had been the first to produce real scientific observation—something that still grated at unicorns almost two millennia hence. There was a long debate amongst unicorn mathematicians if the number ever ended or repeated. Neighton had spent months calculating out digits, and managed a gross with no obvious pattern. Dale scribbled her words—and her symbol—in his notebook, while Lyra shifted uncomfortably on the cooler. She shouldn’t have had that coffee. It had helped her focus, but now it was causing other problems. The sky was still overcast—although the rain had tapered off to a misty drizzle—so she didn’t know what time it was. Still, there was no way she was going to make it to the end of the day, and she didn’t know how to ask a somewhat vital question. He noticed her body language, and set his pen down. “Lyra?” He held his hands in a an open gesture—one she’d come to recognize as expressing a lack of understanding. She could demonstrate her need, but that might be rude. Finally, she looked at her empty cup and had an inspiration. “Lyra make water where?” Dale looked at her curiously. It wasn’t something he’d even considered, which was kind of stupid of him. He could only imagine what kind of facility she was used to—so much would depend on whether their spaceship had artificial gravity or not. Naturally, he was imagining it from a human perspective, but the technological hurdles in microgravity had to be similar. The astronauts had special training just to use the toilet on the space shuttle, since it didn’t work like a normal toilet. He’d read descriptions of the process, although it was probably one of those things that had to be experienced first-hand to really get an idea how challenging it actually was. That thought led him off on a tangent—he wondered how they had dealt with the long-term effects of microgravity. NASA would be very interested, especially if they were seriously considering a mission to Mars. If he remembered right, spending long amounts of time in space caused a loss of bone density and muscle tone, and he thought he could remember that there were problems with the circulatory system, too, since the human body was evolved to work in earth-gravity. He hadn’t given it much thought, but she seemed to be moving around well enough—they had undoubtedly come up with a solution to the problem, either with an gravitational field on the entire ship, or a gravity wheel that the crew could exercise in. They could also have solved the problem with fast travel: if they had some sort of warp drive or could control wormholes or something they wouldn’t be in microgravity long enough for it to be a problem. Maybe everyone aboard the ship was deep-frozen, and only thawed if the ship’s computers found something of note. Cryogenics was—at best—a fringe science on Earth, but maybe the problems of cell damage weren’t insurmountable. Of course, he’d been thinking that they had a large proportion of water in them, like a human. Water was one of the few chemicals that expanded when it froze. Maybe they were made up of something else—something that could be frozen and thawed without any damage. But she ate his food and drank his water, so they couldn’t be that dissimilar, probably. Which reminded him, she needed an answer from him. He had just been going out into the woods. Bears did it, as the saying went, and if it was good enough for a bear it was fine for him. That led to another communication problem, of course. How to tell her that any tree was good enough? There was no way he was going to demonstrate; that went well beyond what should be expected of anyone. This was the kind of thing that was played for comic value in movies, yet there was no humor here. She’d said ‘make water,’ so at least he had that much information—she wasn’t going to expel dark matter like Nibbler. He looked at the forest which surrounded his camp. As long as she got the idea across that she could go in the woods, he was going to be spared the difficult explanation of how a toilet worked, or what the proverbial three shells were for. “There,” he finally said, pointing to the treeline. “In the trees.” She looked at him curiously. ”Outside,” he said, finally remembering the words they’d covered. “Altimeter’s back on line.” Calley looked over at the captain, who appeared deep in thought. He waited patiently for a response, scanning over the gauges. They all seemed normal now—the weather radar had returned to its normal display, and the VOR needle was sitting rock-solid. “I just don’t like it. How can we trust the altimeter now?” The captain rubbed his jaw. “Why don’t you spin around, so we can see North Fox?” Calley complied, but it was quickly obvious that they weren’t going to see anything through the mist. Visibility was a mile, maybe two—it was hard to judge over the featureless surface of the lake just how far away things were. “There’s something there,” the captain finally stated. “It might be messing with our electronics. It might be natural, or it might be man-made, but there’s no way we should fly back into it. If the weather were clear, we could work our way up, kind of get a feel for the boundaries of the thing. I don’t think it would affect the flight controls, but I can’t be sure, and I don’t want to risk it. If it’s some kind of weird electrical discharge—well, I don’t know.” “We can’t just ignore it,” Calley said. “It has to be something, and it could be a hazard to navigation. What if it pulses, kind of? A ship could run aground.” The captain nodded in agreement. “We’ve got to do something. Let’s check and see if the radios are working again. If my theory is right, they should be. We can radio back to the Air Station, and tell them what we’ve got. If they dispatch a couple of boats, they could get close enough in to see what’s going on.” “If their radios quit, they can use the Aldis.” Calley said thoughtfully. “And if the motors stop working, at least the boat will still float. They can send them in a line, a few miles apart, so if the first one gets in trouble, the second will be there to respond.” “I like it.” The captain toggled the radio. “Tower, chopper sixty-two, do you copy?” “Sixty-two, go ahead.” “Tower, we’ve got a bit of a situation on North Fox.” The captain explained what they’d seen, and gave a brief overview of their surmise. “Ah, understand sixty-two. We’ll contact Manistee and tell them to send out their boats.” “They’ve only got one RBS, right?” “Correct, only one.” “Maybe you should see if you can coordinate with someone else, too. Maybe Grand Haven or Sturgeon Bay, get a couple more RBS’s, so they can go in slow.” Is anyone in distress?” The tower controller sounded slightly concerned. “Not that we’re aware of, but it could potentially crash an airplane. Remember that Piper we went looking for a couple days ago? She lost her radios around North Fox, too. It appears to have a broad effect on radio and radar.” Before coming to Ponyville, Lyra would have undoubtedly been appalled by Dale’s suggestion that she just use the woods, but out on the edge of civilization as it was, indoor plumbing was still a bit of a luxury item for many ponies. It still felt wrong—every time she had to go outdoors she could envision her mother’s disapproving frown—but she wasn’t totally opposed to the idea, unlike many of the fancy Canterlot unicorns. As she looked for a suitable spot, she took the time to let her mind wander. There was something about Dale’s home that bothered her. She couldn’t quite put her hoof on it, but something seemed out of place. She mentally reviewed everything she’d seen. Even though she’d never gone through the full training that the Royal Guards got, she was still exposed to quite a few lessons about how to be a good guard. One of the most important was observation. Her instructor had said that sometimes even when they weren’t sure what was out of place, the nagging feeling shouldn’t be ignored, and she’d been having that feeling for the entire day. She resolved that their next meeting would take place in three days. That would give her enough time to debrief with Twilight and Luna, and go over the new words they’d learned with Octavia without feeling rushed. As she was heading back towards Dale’s compound, a faint scent teased her nostrils even over the misty rain. Mint! Not only was it tasty, but it was also good for indigestion, and that was something she could use right now. She veered slightly off-course—towards the beach—which seemed to be the source of the scent. She finally found a fairly sizable patch of mint growing in the shelter of an oak tree. Despite it having been her objective, something else caught her eye—a large silvery structure. Lyra moved over to examine it. She couldn’t figure out what it was doing in the woods, which piqued her curiosity. As peaceful as it was on the island, she was longing to see something more of Dale’s culture—ideally, it would be something so fantastic even Twilight would have to admit that Dale was civilized. Her first thought was that it was some kind of metal roof—a few buildings in Ponyville had them instead of the more common thatching. It was too short for anypony to fit under, though, unless some of the smaller creatures which lived on the island had built it. But if it was a roof, what was it meant to cover? Even more confounding was the construction of the thing. A neat row of rivets ran down the center, and there was a standing seam between them. It had clearly been made in two halves and riveted together. This was far beyond what a pony could do. The largest forges Lyra was aware of couldn’t fit more than a steel hoop for a tire. She couldn’t even imagine the process for working such a giant piece of metal. Maybe a dragon could do it, but the amount of time required to make such a perfectly smooth surface—even if a unicorn skilled in metalwork helped—was unbelievable, and the cost of production was unfathomable. The scratches along the roof were perplexing, too, especially coupled with the small dents on one end of it. Something had fallen on it or brushed across it, and caused the scratches. But that hadn’t happened here. The only things which could have fallen on it were branches, and they wouldn’t have caused such damage. Puzzled, she walked around to examine the other side. Much the same as the first, it offered her no clues until she got to the very front, where half of a sticker clung to the metal. At first, she could make nothing of it, either—while it had some kind of characters on it, they weren’t ones that Dale had taught her. She tilted her head, and it suddenly clicked. The sticker was upside-down. Perhaps the roof was upside down, too. Perhaps it wasn’t a roof at all. She stepped back, to get a look at the whole thing. It was pointy on both ends, fairly flat on the bottom with a slight ridge running down the center where the two halves had been joined. It must have been turned over so it wouldn’t fill with water when it was right-side up. It was not much wider than Dale, but it was several times longer than he was tall. At least two Dales could fit into it lying down, more if they sat up. She wondered if it was some kind of bathtub. Like a large pot, a fire could be built under it to heat the water—but there would be soot marks on it, if it was used that way. As she walked around the dented end of it, she happened to look up and spotted a sort-of trail leading back towards the beach. Lyra frowned. She knew that small boats were usually kept upside down when they weren’t used. After all, if they kept water out, they’d keep it in, too. But nopony would build a boat out of metal; it would sink. Wood floated, metal didn’t. Or would it? Bon Bon’s metal pots floated in the sink, until she pushed the lip of the pot underwater. Then they filled with water and sank. She scratched it with her hoof. It was a soft metal—softer than her shoes. It looked like the same kind of metal that the spindly poles supporting the pavilion had been made of. In a way, that made sense. If it were cast iron or steel, it would rust if it were exposed to water, and a boat was meant to be exposed to water. If this was a boat, Dale had reason to be confident that his pavilion poles would be unharmed by the rain. Did he use the boat to get fish? It could explain where the carrion on the sandwich had come from. Still, she hadn’t smelled anything fishy around his home, and fishing boats usually had a permanent odor; this one did not. Lyra stuck her cheek against the ground, trying to get a good look inside the thing. There were cross-bars which held the two sides together, along with two seats—one at each end. Some thin black straps held an oar to the cross-bars, which further reinforced her theory that it was some kind of a boat. She didn’t see any provision for a mast. She’d assumed that the oar was for steering, but it could also be for propulsion--the minotaurs had ships which were propelled by both sails and banks of oars for when the winds were unfavorable. It wasn’t a design that a pony would find of any value at all, but she’d observed enough of Dale’s behavior to have a fairly good idea of how he might use such a boat. She chuckled. She was sure she was right about this. Maybe fish smelled different in Dale’s world—she hadn’t seen one yet, but there were pictures of them in the book. He might even cook them; she’d seen a firepit with charred logs near his pavilion, and there was a neat pile of freshly-sawn logs right next to— Sawn logs. Sawn. She’d seen nopony else on the island. The scouts hadn’t seen anypony, either. That close to the spell’s landing site, they should have found his home. They should have smelled his fire, or his food. Unless he wasn’t there. She’d wondered why he hadn’t built a proper house. He must have had the tools—he certainly had a saw. Wood was plentiful, yet he had his domehouse made of its amazing fabric. He had an ice chest with handles—it looked like something he could carry himself. This wasn’t his home; this was a camp. Lyra grazed on the mint for a while, still thinking. If her hypothesis was correct, she wouldn’t find anything in his camp which couldn’t be carried on or off the island in this boat—unless, like the wood, it grew here naturally. When she was finished eating, she cheerfully returned to camp with a mouthful of extra mint for Dale. Perhaps her food hadn’t agreed with his stomach, either. Trixie slowly moved through the field of crystals. She was swaying on her hooves; if it hadn’t been for the boost in energy she’d felt as the blocking ring finally fell off her horn, she would have long since collapsed. Progress was frustratingly slow. She had discovered that she could weaken the crystals by pressing the strip of lead against their base, which allowed her to carefully push them over by hoof. It was such a laborious process that she would never clear a path to the door; instead, she was settling on only making spots large enough to rest her hooves. With all her concentration elsewhere, the crystals had begun to grow again. The soft whispers of movement echoed through her head, throbbing and reverberating in time to her pulse. Every time she lowered her head she had to close her left eye—something was oozing into it, and as much as she wanted to believe it was sweat, it probably wasn’t. She was in a trance—the same trance which had sustained her day after day at the rock farm. The irony of using skills which she had learned on the run in order to escape from her prison was not lost on her; she wondered if she was the butt of some cosmic joke. A lifetime of highs and lows—each peak taller, and each valley lower—lent her the resilience she needed to take one more step, then one more, then one more. Finally—unexpectedly—her muzzle banged into the cell door. She dropped the blocking ring and bit her tongue, frowning as the salty taste of blood filled her mouth. Trixie looked at the door carefully. Gently, she rested a hoof on the thick wood, feeling for any subtle enchantments which might be present. Feeling none, she shifted her vision. The floor and walls pulsed with their enticingly dark magic, but the door was clear. Still, she hesitated. Getting out was only the first step. Once she was in the hallway, she’d have to get past the guards. Then, she’d have to get out of the castle. Next, probably escape to the Everfree Forest—it might be an obvious haven, but she’d be quite difficult to find there. But what happened next? Live a life of exile? Commune with the trees and squirrels? She couldn’t do that; it wasn’t in her nature. Besides, she hated squirrels. Inspiration suddenly came. She needed to find somepony who could get the dark thoughts out of her head, and she knew just the pony to ask. It would be unexpected, too—the guards would never think of looking where she was going. Fortune favors the bold, Trixie, her mother had said. She put a hoof on the door, gently shifting it to feel for the hinges and latch. She reared back. Showtime. Luna jerked awake, eliciting a whinny of fear from the servant who had been diligently polishing her tiara. During her long period of banishment, she had learned to tap into the dreams of ponies. It was only natural—her father had taught her oneirourgy, and she had managed—with centuries to do little else—to gain a comprehensive feel for the warp and weave of the fabric of Equestria, and even the dreams of sapient creatures. Why this was possible was beyond even her understanding, but it was. Normally, it was a constant background noise, although she had learned to isolate certain emotions from dreams, and she could vaguely sense them. Occasionally, she tapped into dreams, often appearing to the dreamer. It was much easier if it was a pony she knew, and if that pony was near her, but she had the potential ability to do it to anypony—more correctly, anyone—anywhere on Equestria. Now she was feeling another voice in her head—one which had long been dormant. It was faint—the barest whisper above the background—but it was there. Not daring to move any farther and risk the tenuous connection, she began to move through the dreamscape. Occasional imagined monsters popped up here and there, but she ignored them, following the faint trail of her target. She gently, carefully, quietly began moving into the mind of her target. It was one thing to grasp onto an idea a pony was vividly imagining, but this pony wasn’t dreaming—she wasn’t even asleep. Rather, her mind was in a trance, a vague half-awake state. She found a mind in turmoil. Conflicting emotions each vied for attention, each briefly rising to the surface to quickly be replaced by another. The mare was perched on a knife-edge, with doom on one side and salvation on the other. There was really only one thing Luna could do. It was an act she would pay dearly for, when Celestia found out, but it was also an act of atonement. Ever so gently, Luna moved farther into Trixie’s mind and gave her a little push. While Lyra was gone, Dale reflected on how the day had been so far. He had missed most of her meal, although when he had looked up from the apple, she was nose-down to the table, gamely picking up gorp. He’d noticed that both sandwich halves were gone, so apparently she was omnivorous. It was interesting, although it wasn’t particularly useful to know at the moment. The idea did lead him to wonder how they kept animals. Were there farms with cows and pigs and sheep on their homeworld? Or did they normally do all their hunting in the wild? Maybe they were opportunistic omnivores. Maybe their spaceship had an artificial meat laboratory. He looked at the geometry book—which they’d managed to get halfway through—and frowned. It had seemed like such a good plan while he was sitting at home, yet both of them were struggling with the book, and to what real purpose? Some general had said that no plan survived first contact with the enemy, and he couldn’t agree more—even if Lyra wasn’t the enemy. The book on the solar system had fallen flat; he’d gotten more use out of Dick and Jane. Dale looked at his watch. She’d only been gone for ten minutes, but that seemed like forever. Aside from the white noise of the rainfall, he heard nothing from the woods. Was she lost? Maybe it just took her a while to take off her suit—if she was wearing one at all. When she’d fallen on him, her fur had felt like—well, it felt like fur. Or hair, or a pelt, or whatever horse fur was called. The skin—if it was skin—underneath had been warm, close to his own body temperature. More importantly, it hadn’t shifted around like clothes would. It felt attached; it felt like it was part of her. But what kind of explorer would go naked into a new world? Surely, they knew all about germs and such, things in the atmosphere of a strange planet which could be harmful. She was cautious, yes, but she had a child-like exuberance. He had a hard time imagining Neil deGrasse Tyson rolling around on the beach like a dog, even for the benefit of a first-contact experience. She reminded him of the Eloi. Not because she was vapid and overly-trusting—she was far from that—but she seemed to have an unusual interest his world, even though there wasn’t much of it to see here. He was beginning to wonder if taking her to a science museum would blow her mind. Of course, it was hard to read her expressions, and he couldn’t assume that he was correct. But she’d looked at his books with wide-eyed wonder, acted like a five-year-old when they were naming actions, and she’d been looking around his camp as if she’d never seen anything as interesting as a tent before. Was she autistic? Be careful Dale, he reminded himself. He was basing his entire judgement on a few hours of direct contact and the few items she had brought with her. If she wasn’t a veteran at this kind of thing, everything would be new and strange. How would he feel if their positions were reversed? He could only imagine them looking down on him for being intrigued by something as simple as a pneumatic pocket door. There were also a lot of stories in which the space travelers were searching for a new world because they’d ruined their own, in which case the sight of trees growing naturally might be a wondrous thing. Admittedly, she didn’t seem like she was from a post-apocalyptic future world, but how could he be sure? I wonder if she’s just taking the opportunity to play in the forest? He looked around the camp, and caught sight of her as she bounded back into camp. Her legs were splattered with mud, but more interestingly, she was carrying a mouthful of plants. She spit them out on the table, and pushed them towards him. He recognized it instantly—she’d grabbed a bunch of mint. Why she’d done so was beyond him. She looked at him brightly. “Dale eat. Good.” He looked at the mint dubiously. Sharing food was one thing, but did he really want to eat mint that she’d carried here in her mouth? The trip over had been uneventful. Although it had begun in miserably drizzly rain, as they got out into the lake, they passed the edge of the storm, and the weather changed to a mist. Ryan stood at the helm, solid as a rock. Anthony manned the radio, and kept a close eye on the patrol boat following them. His only word since they’d left the rendezvous off Beaver Island had been “faster,” and then he had fallen silent. Cortez kept a lookout for other boats, although the weather pretty much made his job moot—there weren’t many pleasure boaters willing to brave the weather. He kept looking up from the radar to sweep his gaze outside, as if he didn’t believe the information it presented. Kate sat in the back of the boat, a superfluous crewmember for the moment. “Radar’s getting a little funny,” Cortez finally commented. “I’m getting static.” Anthony nodded. “We’re getting close. There’s supposed to be some electrical interference. I’m surprised it’s still here, though.” “What do you mean? They said that the chopper lost its radios and its radar.” “Most electrical anomalies would be gone by now.” Anthony gestured out over the water. “Weather like this might make St. Elmo’s fire, which is probably what they saw.” “Man, that’s in thunderstorms, and it don’t screw up the Doppler.” Anthony shook his head. “There only has to be a difference in electromagnetic potential; doesn’t have to be lightning.” “Whatever.” Cortez shook his head, returning his gaze to the radar before giving up and looking out through the windows. “Kate, why don’t you signal the second boat to slow down a bit? We’re getting close to North Fox.” “Sir, isn’t that normally Ryan’s duty?” Anthony looked at her sternly. “He’s piloting. You need the practice anyway. Ryan, once they confirm our signal, I want to slow it down. No need to ram the island—this weather, seems like we could.” He looked thoughtful. “Probably shouldn’t even be going this fast—what’s your speed?” “Thirty-five knots,” he said. “Seems fast.” “Yes, sir.” He notched the throttle back, declining to mention that Anthony had been the one to give the order for speed in the first place. Countermanding a superior officer was never a wise career move. “This is bad, this is very bad.” Twilight paced around the main room of the library. Floating just in front of her face was a crayon-written note. She hoped that she had remembered to tell Lyra not to share food with the creature. She was sure she’d said something about that. She knew that Iron Will’s goat assistants could eat things that would make a pony very sick—things which might even kill a pony, if proper medial treatment wasn’t quickly sought. She’d been making herself a sandwich, and had seen the note lying on the kitchen counter. It was obviously Pinkie’s doing. The note smelled strongly of frosting; it almost certainly had been attached to a baked good of some sort. Probably a cupcake—Pinkie had a very strange obsession with cupcakes, although she had a surprising inability to actually make them. At least, when she had assistance. Probably she could cook them well on her own, but whenever somepony offered her a helping hoof, her baking was a disaster. How was that even possible? Twilight stopped her pacing, her earlier worries gone for the moment now that she had a new problem to chew on. Applejack had helped her once, and the resultant muffins had made several ponies quite ill. AJ was no slouch in the kitchen, normally. She’d certainly learned from a master, so how had she been able to misunderstand ingredients so badly? And what about Apple Bloom? Even if the foal could manage to turn a simple project into a disaster, Pinkie should have known she was making mistakes. So why didn’t she lift a hoof in correction? She shook her head. This was the kind of thing that only happened to Pinkie Pie, and there would be no coherent explanation from her. If she’d even noticed. Twilight had had the misfortune to eat one of the cupcakes at Diamond Tiara’s cute-ceañera; Pinkie had said that they were good. Did Pinkie know something that nopony else did? She’d had misses—she was completely off the mark about Zecora—but her hits were more common. She’d solved the problem with the parasprites, and her pinkie-sense tended to work reliably on monsters and falling objects. Even the toxic muffins had motivated everypony to help Applejack despite her protests. Her seemingly disastrous attempt to help Cranky Doodle had reunited him with his long-lost love. Could this be another case where she knew that the cupcake would do no harm, or where its presence would set in motion a chain of events that were beneficial to the citizens of Ponyville? No. That’s ridiculous. Twilight began pacing again. If only there were something she could do, some way she could get a message to Lyra. Lyra looked at the camp as if she’d never seen it before. In a way, this was the first view of it—as a camp. It had all been new to her when she first set hoof into the camp, but now the little details were sticking out, in a way which made her wonder how she’d missed them before. The pavilion poles were segmented. The ground wasn’t cleared at all—detritus and rocks littered the ground. The table had a seam in the center; diagonal supports on the legs were riveted in the center. He had an icebox—but no stove, just a kettle supported on a green cylinder. An oar which was a match to the one she’d seen in his boat leaned up against a tree. Most significantly, nothing looked like it belonged in these woods. Homes usually had thematic landscaping around them. Practically every home in Ponyville—even those not owned by earth ponies—had flowers around them. Here there was nothing but clearing and then untamed woods. The furnishings appeared to have been selected with function over form. Even allowing for Dale’s tastes to be different than her own, there was a strange, almost illogical mix of hard and soft, of temporary and durable. The table and the ice chest were both made of stronger materials than the domehouse and pavilion, for example, and the bag of food held by a rope in the tree was obviously a short-term storage solution: anything that wanted the food would cut or gnaw through the rope. Twilight had speculated that he had come to observe the stars. She’d been wrong about that—the tube which Twilight supposed had contained a telescope instead was filled with coffee. Dale had almost spilled it when she started laughing as he poured a cup. Was he an explorer, or could he have just been taking a vacation in the woods, as ponies sometimes did? She hadn’t seen anything on him which could be a cutie mark—if his kind even had them—so there was no clue there. Besides, not every pony had a job which was reflected by their cutie mark. When she had first seen him, he had not been carrying his backpack, or his blue jug that held water. His boat had been out of sight. It was strange that he would pull it so far from shore, when there weren’t even any tides, but he probably had a good reason. He was up earlier than ponies usually woke, although she couldn’t assume that the same held true of his kind. It made her appreciate his efforts all the more. He must have gone back to his home to get the books—for there was no reason for him to have brought them to the island before their first contact. It also explained why he had failed to produce a chalkboard for this meeting. Like her, he was leaving his home for these meetings. Unlike her, he probably couldn’t go back for the night. She wished their language had been similar. She could have taught him a teleportation spell that would have saved him a lot of travel time. Dale was looking at her curiously. He hadn’t eaten any of the mint. “Dale not house here?” She waved a hoof around the camp. “Dale house there?” This time Lyra pointed in the direction of the water. Dale nodded. “Lyra go Dale house there?” Again, she pointed towards the lake. Dale considered her words thoughtfully. He was impressed that she’d figured out that this wasn’t his home on her own. He couldn’t remember if the visual dictionary had a section on camping in it, and surely they would have enough variety of architectural styles to know that not every kind of dwelling was illustrated in the book. But how would he get her home—if he choose to take her? Could he just provide map coordinates, or would he have to take her there himself? Would they be able to beam down to his backyard? Was a giant glowing bubble that knocked out electronics a violation of local ordinances? If she brought that with her, his neighbors would be sure to notice it. Eventually, they’d have to have a discussion about this, but it would have to wait until their vocabulary had improved. “No Lyra go Dale house there.” He made the sunrise gesture with his hands. “No now. Dale Lyra need words.” He made writing motions with his hand as he spoke, then pointed to his notebook. She nodded—then climbed back up on the cooler, covering it with muddy streaks. Dale sighed. He couldn’t fault her for it, although she could have stood out in the rain a little longer and washed her legs off. As if the weather disagreed with him, the late afternoon sun finally broke through the clouds. Ryan slowed the engines to a crawl as the beach grew closer. They’d already signaled the second boat that their radios were dead, and it was waiting further out for them to relay new discoveries as they made them. His right hand was locked on the throttle; one motion and the boat would be headed full-speed astern. He was willing himself not to look at the glowing hemisphere that dominated the sandy beach, instead listening for the slightest variation in the noise of the outboards. Not for the first time, he wished that the gun had been mounted before they left. While he doubted it would have any effect on the anomaly, it would be comforting to have, all the same. The other three crew members were simply staring at the bubble, occasionally surreptitiously taking pictures with their cell phones. The misty rain they’d been travelling through had finally dispersed as they grew close, leaving the forest glittering with diamonds in the late afternoon sun. None of them had noticed. “It’s some kind of electrical . . . thing,” Anthony stated. “Like ball lightning, maybe.” He looked over at Ryan. “Put her on shore. Hold her with the engines.” “Are you sure?” Ryan turned to look him in the eye. “It might be dangerous.” “It’s electrical or atmospheric,” Anthony said confidently. “But if it were powerful enough to charge the sand, somehow, we’d see signs at the water’s edge—little arcs or electricity, or something.” “Just because you’re studying to be an electrical engineer don’t mean you know anything,” Cortez muttered under his breath. “What was that, Cortez? Do I detect a hint of insubordination?” “Sir, no sir.” Cortez said carefully. “I was just commenting that the commander should proceed with due caution into an unfamiliar situation.” “Ah yes. Of course you were.” He smiled. “When we land, you can be the first ashore. Perhaps we can all learn from your cautious attitude.” Cortez looked at the glowing bubble again. “It don’t seem to be affecting anything on the beach,” he said. “There’s a seagull about ten feet from it that looks normal. If we keep a safe distance from it, we’ll be all right.” “That’s the spirit,” Anthony said. “Kate, you’ll come ashore, too. Ryan can signal with the light if he has to—if something goes really wrong, we’ll get off the beach first, and signal later. Ryan, when you see the utility boat getting closer, why don’t you signal the second RBS to run out to it and get the gun?” He looked at the empty mount. “I can’t imagine that we’ll need it, but it sure would be nice to have, just in case.” “I was thinking the same thing, sir.” He glanced over his shoulder, but all he could see was the RBS from Sturgeon Bay that had rendezvoused with them off Beaver Island. We could have mounted it while we were waiting. “I’ll signal them as soon as I see them.” “Thank you.” If Anthony heard the sarcasm in Ryan’s voice, he ignored it. The boat safely beached, the three crew members slowly walked towards the bubble. It sat there, motionless, unchanging, with no observable effects on the beach. Anthony frowned. It was too big to be ball lightning, and too stationary. Even swampgas—an extremely unlikely phenomenon on a beach—would have flickered as it burned but this did nothing. It was like someone had taken a giant magenta punch-bowl and placed it upside-down on the sand. Despite his orders for Cortez to lead the expedition, Anthony rushed over towards the bubble. He almost wanted to touch it, to see if it was smooth and hard, or if it would depress if touched. He started looking around on the beach for a stick before Cortez’s voice got his attention. “What’s up?” “Check this out.” Cortez pointed down at the sand. “You’ve gotta see this.” “Just a moment.” He looked over at Kate, who was still behind him, looking at the bubble nervously. “Kate, I want you to keep an eye on that thing. Keep anyone from getting too close.” “Sir?” “Maybe fifteen, twenty feet away would be safe enough. Just so you can see around it, kind of. You know, give yourself enough space to move.” “Yes sir.” Privately, Kate felt that ‘enough space’ would be safely aboard the RBS, until someone got out here who had the slightest idea what such a thing was capable of—for all she knew, it shot off arcs of lightning every now and then. But, given Anthony’s already grumpy mood, it would be foolish of her to try and countermand him. “What’ve ya got?” “I don’t know.” Cortez looked down at the items at his feet. “There’s some kind of a sword, and a spear, and a claw, I think.” “Don’t touch them,” Anthony said unnecessarily. “They could be part of what makes this thing operate.” He jogged over, finally reahing the items. “They’re manmade,” he concluded. “Except for the claw, that might be natural.” “From what? A T. Rex?” Cortez frowned. “Ain’t never seen a sword blade like that, either. It looks kind of like a machete, except there’s no handle.” Anthony squatted down to take a closer look. “They’re blunt. I don’t think they’re meant to be used as weapons. Maybe some kind of weird props?” “They’re pretty clean, they can’t have been here all that long.” “Rain would’ve washed them off,” Anthony reminded him. “Could’ve been here for weeks, maybe months. It’d take longer than that before stainless started to show signs of wear.” “If they’re props, they could even be polished aluminum or plastic.” Cortez looked at the claw again. “Do you think someone was shooting a movie here, and just forgot these things?” “Maybe.” Anthony scratched his head. “Why here, though?” He took a few pictures with his phone. “I dunno.” Cortez looked around. “Doesn’t look too much different than anywhere else in northern Michigan.” “Mm-hm.” Anthony’s gaze had gone back to the bubble again. It was so out of place—not that there was a place for such a thing, but if there was, it wouldn’t have been here. It reminded him vaguely of something he’d seen in one of the more recent superhero movies. Some kind of last-second save by the hero. Was it the Avengers? There had been a falling bus or car, and just when before it hit, the— “Do you see it?” Cortez was pointing towards the trees. “See what?” Anthony snapped his attention back around. “The trail.” “No, I—wait, yes, I do.” Once it was pointed out, he wondered how he’d missed it before. “Kate, you doing all right over there?” “Yes, sir,” she shouted down the beach. It was not entirely true—she’d seen a small bird fly into the bubble. The bubble had flickered for a second, and the bird had slid down to the ground, where it now lay motionless with one wing sticking up awkwardly. It could have just been knocked out: she’d seen that happen when they flew into windows. On the other hand, the bubble could have killed it. Somehow. She resolved not to touch the thing, just to be on the safe side. “Ok. Cortez and I are going into the woods. There’s a trail; might be a clue as to how this thing got here and what it is.” “I’ll keep a close watch,” she assured him. Anthony turned back to Cortez. “Lead on, MacDuff.” “Ain’t right,” he replied. “Leaving her there like that. In case something does happen. We should wait right here—should pull her back, too.” “It’s just a short walk, we could be back in a flash.” “Might not be quick enough.” Cortez looked back down the beach. “I ain’t saying you’re wrong, but I ain’t saying you’re right, either. I don’t know what that thing is, and I don’t think you do, either. How can you say how far away is far enough? I wouldn’t want to see nothing happen to Katie.” “She’s only a coupla hundred feet down the beach. Could get to her in an instant.” Anthony looked towards the path. “Are you coming?” “It’s only a coupla hundred feet,” Cortez commented dryly. “I could get to you in a flash. Why don’t you go up to the edge of the woods and get a look for yourself?” Anthony looked back at Kate, then up towards Cortez. The man was skirting the edge of insubordination, but there was no way he could make it stick—even if he wanted to. Was he right? Was the bubble dangerous? Taking Anthony’s silence as assent, Cortez grunted and walked back down the beach a little bit, to where he had a clear view of Kate and—if he turned around—the woods.