III — The Cosmic Egg
If the ponies of Equestria responded well to our earlier reports, Professor Rock Watcher was lauded as a hero when the news of his sub-expedition reached their ears. They looked upon it as if the very spirit of Equestria was manifest in the venture. The sub-expedition would take pony hooves in strength where they'd never before been. Over the years I've become somewhat blasé concerning the wild places of the world, but most ponies look upon them as alien and frightening locales. To conquer them is to make the world a safer, better and more harmonious place. There can be no greater achievement.
While the public's reaction might have been driven by fear, the ponies resident at the main camp felt only excitement. They competed intensely for the limited number of places. Rock Watcher's stern presence stopped any physical fights breaking out, but for most of the 5th, the camp more resembled a crucible of cats.
Professor Rock Watcher's participation was never in doubt, but the other academics argued virulently for their own involvement, as did most of the graduate students. In the end Cambrian, Nimbus, Life Tree and Arc Ane earned their places and took with them their choice of students. The remainder stayed behind with me in the main camp, to continue work on our existing finds and manage supply runs. Bingo of course wanted to go, but Steelheart was firm. He might stay in the relative warmth and safety of the main base if he insisted, but gallivanting into the icy yonder would kill him.
It took a day to gather the needed supplies and carefully examine the flying karts for damage. Apart from a few cracked and easily replaced fire rubies everything proved perfect. Spike ate the discards and pronounced them 'spicy'. The sub-expedition left on the 6th — three flying karts, a number of small flight sledges, five academics, ten students, six experienced skyponies from the Aeolipyle and eighteen Svalbarding pegasi. They carried a large number of dragon fire bottles with them, drawing from the stockpile Spike added to as time allowed each day. As such they were in frequent contact.
According to their regular reports, they followed a zigzagging path north, out through Princess Celestia Land and then onto the narrow trail Bingo had mapped. Not including Little Ken, three students and Professor Arc Ane had succeeded in learning the silver metal detection spell. They took shifts scanning the icy fields which stretched to infinity in all directions. Each day saw a hooffull of minor blips, but Rock Watcher simply marked them on the map and moved on. He quested for a bigger prize.
As the second day of their voyage began, the wind awoke and arose. Much as it had during Bingo's expedition, it howled down from the north, a malignant force which carried knives of cold. The flying karts were built to withstand such weather, but the journey was surely harrowing and much slowed. The package of notes sent back that day spoke of shaking and creaking wood, a rising tension felt in the back teeth, a strange psychic cold which seemed to penetrate even the protective fire rubies and a peculiar cast to the light which made the eyes water. By my count they were some 1200 miles from Canterlot by this point, a frightening distance to the pony mind. Who knew what lay that far from the orderly world of our home?
It took five days for Rock Watcher to find what he was looking for, but when he did, he wrote immediately.
"11th July, 1pm. Little Ken found massive silver metal signal. Setting down karts to investigate. At foothills of Mountains of Discord. Huge things. May be largest in world. No time for proper measurements myself. Have set pegasi to do so while I set up camp. Svalbarding ponies refuse to go near. Need speak with factor."
Those of us who remained in camp listened with bated breath as Spike read the letter aloud. I think most were imagining themselves standing beside those trailblazing ponies. When the next letter arrived, work virtually halted.
"11th July, 3.30pm. Basic camp set up. Have arranged flying karts in triangle around drilling equipment. Set Svalbarding pegasi to build supplementary cloud wall since they still refuse to scout the nearby mountains. Judging from our current altitude, highest peaks at nine thousand five hundred meters."
On the reverse was a second letter, penned by Professor Arc Ane.
"The silver metal signature is incredibly strong. Little Ken is truly a genius in this regard. I can only dream of what lies below the ice and rock. A hidden mystery from the very dawn of the world. Still, there is some queer power to this place. I feel as if I'm standing on the edge of something big, a precipice perhaps. It pushes upon me. And the light. My most distinguished colleague Professor Rock Watcher does not feel it, but I do. My eyes water whenever I am outdoors. Night almost seems preferable."
The remainder of that day's messages were depressingly routine. The ponies of the sub-expedition set up and tested the drill, erected plastic shelters, moved food stores to where they could be better accessed and completed a hundred other mundane tasks. I did my best to move loitering ponies away from Spike's office and back to their assigned tasks. As the hours passed with little in the way of substantive news, I mostly succeeded.
Not even the nightly howls of windigos could stifle our spirits, and everypony returned to their bad habits come the morning. Letters continued to arrive every few hours, but they were weak missives, not fit to fuel the fire of our intellectual hunger. Drilling proceeded slowly. We'd chosen past dig sites for their readily accessible seams of rock, located where the stone ribs of the Uncharted North broke through its icy flesh. Thick snow-ice and hard rock covered this new site, however. It made for difficult digging, but I had no doubt that Rock Watcher's drill was up for the task. The pony was a genius, with doctorates in engineering, biology, geology and even thaumaturgy. It isn't rare for an earth pony to be granted a D.Thau (by tradition older than memory, most higher mathematics awards are granted with the wand), but his concerned true magic, and that was impressive. Earth ponies tended to struggled with even theoretical work due to their inability to cast spells.
It wasn't until July 13th that something truly noteworthy happen. Spike burst into my office, panting as if all the monsters of Tartars were on his heels. He waved a letter in his hand. "They found it."
"Drill has reached the silver metal. Level congruent with previous samples: approx. five hundred million years. Complete egg. Exact size and shape Cambrian theorised."
The letter was barely an untidy scrawl, but its news was undeniable. I galloped to my door and corralled the first pony I saw. It was Mountain Flower. After a few excited words, she left to spread the news.
The next letter came an hour later.
"Professor Arc Ane and students have performed successful spatial shift. Silver egg now on surface. Metal shimmers with colours. They are mesmerising — deeper, more vibrant than before. Something in the light? Others say light is abnormal, but I do not see it. Have had to tell three ponies so far to stop staring. Egg not perfect whole as expected. Slight lines form rectangle on side, six by 2 meters by 0.9 meters. Some speculate door. Attempting to open now."
That message brushed aside any pretence at work for the day. Two dozen ponies gathered in the main hall. I had the cook put on a large stew pot, and we waited with bated breath. Bingo stood at the group's edge, wings and head hung heavy. His feathers and coat were dull and ashen, but a spark of feverish light burnt in his eyes. Every time Spike so much as twitched, he'd tense and stop breathing for a moment.
The next letter came.
"Door remains closed. Am convinced speculation was right. Is entrance of some kind. Just need the key. Attempts have revealed additional details. Silver metal forms complete barrier against telekinesis. All attempts to reach through and manipulate the inside have failed. Silver metal maintains resistance to all forms of attack. Students who stared into reflections report strange visions. One — Keen Wit — saw alien plaza populated by incomprehensible creatures. Fanciful nonsense. Have told them to draw what they see if they won't stop wasting time. Find enclosed photographs of silver egg."
Our expedition made much use of self-developing cameras, expensive devices but most assuredly worth the extra bits. Spike held up the pictures one by one.
The first depicted a gigantic silver egg, larger than any I'd seen. It outsized even those laid by the gargantua strain of mega-dodo native to the Maneritius Archipelago. Watcher, Cambrian, Nimbus, Life Tree and Arc Ane stood in front of it. It towered over them and held their warped reflections in cages fashioned from twisted mirror.
The next showed no ponies, just the egg and two distance sticks, connected at right angles. Strange alien colours swirled over the egg's surface, so fluid they almost seemed to move. I'd observed similar spectral bands on smaller silver metal pieces, but they'd become concentrated and less elusive on the larger egg.
The third photo displayed a fearsome wall of towering, cyclopean mountains. They swept forever in both directions, the proof of their infinity spoiled only by the diffuse mist which hung in the air. These, I realised, must be the so named 'Mountains of Discord'. Even trapped by chemical reaction, their size and power remained immense. Looking at the photograph, I felt very insignificant.
The final picture showed the entire sub-expedition arrayed before the egg, the first row sitting on the ground so everypony could fit. Thirty nine pony faces smiled out — earth, pegasus and unicorn united in this venture. I couldn't help but notice that two-thirds of the ponies present squinted, eyes half-shut. Was this the strange light previous letters had mentioned? It seemed so minor a malady, but something within their slitted gazes worried me all the same.
We passed the photographs from hoof to hoof as we waited for the next letter. When it came it wasn't the news we'd been hoping for, but Professor Arc Ane had interesting things to say all the same.
"I have examined Keen Wit's sketches. They bear a remarkable similarity to the mythological Plateau of Leng, described in Abdul Alhaizum's October Codex. I believe the silver egg is displaying images to its watchers, much as a unicorn skilled in illusion might do. If I am correct, where is the 'Plateau of Leng', and how did Alhaizum come to hear of it? The egg is impossibly ancient. Surely not even ancestral memory could carry legends over such a time."
The next letter came just as the clock struck one.
"Door is open. Some internal mechanism responded to harmonic key. Keen Wit's idea. Advice see if other silver metal samples respond to harmonics.
"Hatch swung outwards. Egg is hollow. Filled with strange blue fluid. Seems to have non-standard properties. Properties different to those observed in silver metal but may be linked. Highly non-Newtonian. Possibly some form of crash absorber. Previous silver metal site bore marks of impact crater. If silver eggs crashed to the ground, blue fluid possibly used to absorb impact for occupants. High intensity light spells reveal shapes within egg. Too dense to see what. Blue fluid has resisted physical removal. Team attempting to find alternate methods."
A deathly silence filled the hall as Spike read the last word. I felt my heart beat three times. Walls of eternal cold pushed in on me. The very universe hung in the balance. Then everypony started to speak at once. Doctor Rodinia walked out to me and nodded her head. "We've made history here." Yes, we had, but of what kind?
After that the news just kept on coming.
"3pm. Have drained blue liquid. Stored samples for transport and placed remainder in sealed pit. Liquid loses consistency when exposed to air. Used air spells to increase process. Beginning investigation of interior."
"4pm. Egg contains eight cushioned seats. Six seats filled with strange creatures. Average approx. 180 centimetres from feet to head. Uses four limb structure common to mammals. Two appear to have mammaries. Possibly female. Remainder male? Flesh dried and mummified by long exposure to blue fluid. Condition still beyond remarkable. Nothing should remain after five hundred million years. Blue fluid's non-standard properties must be extraordinary. Removing creatures to prepared examination point now."
"6pm. Preliminary examination complete. Arc Ane says creatures bear extraordinary resemblance to beings described as 'Elder Things' in 'October Codex'. Name will serve for now.
"Subjects named ET 1 through 6. ETs 5 and 6 are creatures preliminarily identified as female. ETs 2 and 6 show significant damage to neck and skull region. Spine broken on impact? May have other damage too. Am focusing investigation on intact specimens.
"Speculation by Life Tree that Elder Things used bipedal locomotion. Form and placement of hips supports idea, as does limb ratio. Decidedly simian cast to body. No supplementary tail as observed in Equestria local bipeds however.
"Creatures have four limbs, connected to a central torso. Head connected to torso by a neck. Lower two limbs identified as 'legs', upper limbs as 'arms', per standard biped nomenclature. Arms end in 'hands'. Legs end in 'feet'. Hands have five 'fingers' each. Feet have five 'toes' each.
"ET-1 uses as primary sample for measurement. 185 cm tall. Head approx. 23 cm long, 17 wide. Chin to shoulder line approx. 8 cm. Shoulder to hips approx. 61 cm long. Legs to flat of feet approx. 93 cm long. Arms approx. 81 cm from shoulder to end of hand. Shoulders approx. 46 cm wide. See attached diagram for further measurements.
"Limb locomotion appears similar to pony and other mammalian life. Arms able to move at shoulder joint. Legs able to move at hip-joint. Limbs have second point of motion, approx. half way along length. 'Elbow' and 'Knee'. Limbs then connect to hands/feet, using a wrist/ankle equivalent joint. Fingers connected to hand, with added joint. Fingers then have two joints, equivalent to knuckles. Toes similar. These joints allow for excellent dexterity and fine manipulation. Fingers seem better formed than toes. Toes residual? Similar structure observed in infant dragons, though Elder Things possess additional finger on each extremity. Both fingers and toes end in hard horn like plates. Possibly residual claws? ETs 1 and 6 wear metal bands on the second from left finger on righthoof hand. Rings appear to be made of gold. Some form of ornamentation? Possible decorative, ritual or religious meaning.
"Skin pale in colouration. Partial mummification makes judging original state hard. Life Tree thinks dark. Sparse body hair on some samples. Extensive head hair on all samples. Original colour impossible to judge. No sign of cutie mark on body.
"Elder Things appear to have similar sensory organs to modern life. Two small eyes on head. Eyes perfectly preserved on ET1, 3 and 5. Eyes completely decayed on all other subjects. Reason unknown. Eyes forward facing and unusually small. Approx. 3.4 cm wide. Nose situated below and between eyes. Presumably used for breathing and scent. Ears on side of head. Mouth below nose. Lips thin and highly withered. Teeth inside mouth. 32 total. Some sharp like predators. Others flatter like herbivore. Suspect Elder Things were omnivores of some kind. Withered tongue in mouth. Similar but proportionally smaller than pony. Likely had sense of taste. Mummified like flesh."
After Spike finished his stentorian recitation, he handed out the extras. There were photographs and hoof-sketches. The first photo showed an 'Elder Thing' lying on a flat slab of stone. It wore coveralls, which hid its mummified body from ankles to neck. Only its arms, neck and head showed visible skin, and it appeared emaciated. The skin looked like grotesque sun bleached paper, and brought to mind whispers concerning forbidden grimoires written on the flayed skins of ponies. Even setting that aside, something about the creature's form struck a note of wrongness within me. Perhaps it was the shape — both similar to what I knew but also utterly different and alien. I could see hints of pony in its structure. Its eyes glittered with the light of intellect but were unlike any sophant I knew. Its four limb structure mimicked mine, but this creature would never walk on all fours. Perhaps some of my recalcitrance stemmed from it's obviously post-mortem appearance. An aversion to dead things is written deep within the pony psyche.
I thought again of the name Rock Watcher had given the creatures: Elder Things. I too had read the October Codex and knew of the great reluctance exhibited by the mad zebra Abdul Alhaizum when he touched upon the subject. Primordial masters of the world, he named them, beings who came from the stars and created life using technology and magic beyond even the dreams of ponykind. They were said to have warred with Yeb-Ineat and shattered her at the height of their power. The Mi-go were listed as their most ancient and dangerous foes, likely the same fungoid beings who ripped the Ring of Hue'min'I'tep from the sky. Even in their twilight they held back Malkart, spawn of Cthulhu, and performed the great working needed to banish the Kingdom of Carcosa when its borders pushed forth.
While reading the October Codex those long years ago, I'd dismissed such things as the disturbed delusions of an ill mind, but Arc Ane was right. The creatures from the egg and the Elder Things of primal myth were one and the same. I could almost see the crude sketch which filled a full-page in Canterlot University's copy of the October Codex. It showed a male Elder Thing standing naked and bipedal within an interlocked circle and square, limbs shown twice to demonstrate the range of movements. Some past pony had added a label, the writing crablike: Vitruvian Man.
With so many weighty matters on my mind, I barely glanced at the other pictures. They were broadly similar: one of each Elder Thing, a few of the camp and more of the silver egg. Only the last caught my attention. It showed the inside of the egg, open and bereft of blue fluid and passengers. Its cavernous, sepulchral interior hung with dense umber light. Decrepit seats sat in epoch old lines down a central corridor. Nauseous blue mist skulked in the corners, as if afraid of the air and light. It was an unsettling sight and reminded me that the Elder Things weren't the only discovery we'd named that day. 'Egg' described more than just a shape. It promised birth and a new beginning. What would hatch from this one?
Two letters arrived at 9pm, just as the evening grew old. The first was from Doctor Life Tree, the expedition's biology expert.
"Truly fascinating news. Have performed tests on Elder Thing flesh samples. Elder Things lack alchemical base-structures common to all native life, plant and animal. This is not the result of extreme age. Flesh shows anomalous chemical responses, indicative of analogous but different biology. Elder Things may appear mammalian but their underlying biology is utterly different. There is talk of an extraterrestrial origin. My experiments do not contradict this theory. Find results on reverse."
The reverse contained dense notation only an expert could understand, so Spike didn't read it aloud. Instead he moved onto the next letter, penned by Rock Watcher.
"Mystery of eyes solved. ETs 1, 3 and 5 have mechanical eyes of incredible complexity. Spell analysis shows a massive amount of technological augmentation across multiple subjects. Flesh fused with devices of inconceivable advancement. Bones augmented with ceramic composites for increased strength. Web of mechanical control runs parallel to biological nerves. Full mapping could take life time. Nodes secreted throughout body. Too complex to even guess at function. Nodes seem damaged in ETs 2 and 6.
"Have elected to fully dissect ET-6. ET-6 already damaged, so use as a whole specimen compromised. More can be learned through internal study. Will perform procedure tomorrow. Will wrap specimens and store in snow pit to minimise decay overnight. Will devise long-term solution tomorrow. Recommend detailed account of day's discoveries be sent south as soon as possible."
Rock Watcher's was the final message we received, and over the following hours, everypony slowly drifted away to bed. I can't speak for the others, but I didn't sleep easily that night. The discovery was immense. Within my mind, I wrote and rewrote the summation I'd send south with Derpy a dozen times. Should I downplay the discovery until we knew more or stake my reputation on a massive blitz? We'd quite possibly found the originators of all life — five hundred million year old sophant aliens. Every newspaper in Equestria and beyond would publish it as front page news. My thoughts would likely have been different if I'd known I would never hear from the sub-expedition again.