//------------------------------//
// Chapter III:  'Abderus Home' 
// Story: Faster Than Light 
// by Jet Howitzer 
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	After the ‘Pinkie Incident’, as Twilight had decided to call it, and a long talk with the pink mare about the fact that Abderus couldn’t speak the language, Twilight found herself alone, once again, with the human.  It had taken the better part of an hour to convince him that Pinkie was gone, and even longer after that to get him to leave the room he’d been in since his arrival at the library.  After a long, and fairly drawn out explanation of some of the most basic emotions and feelings the human had finally managed to express several things.  The first of which was that he was hungry.  And in pain.  Based on the emphasis he had placed on the two feelings Twilight was worried that the human prioritized hunger more than he did self preservation.

During the repast Twilight continued illustrating concepts to the human, desperate to give him more tools to use to illustrate how he felt.  He proved remarkably quick to pick up on concepts, and it wasn’t long before he was able to express some more complex topics.  Although, to be fair, Twilight was upset with the human’s progress.  He was faster than a foal was, but still far too slow for someone of his age, based on what he had told Twilight through his earlier writings.

As the meal was winding down, Applejack arrived at the library, her notable concern more prevalent for her friend than for the alien.  Twilight trusted that the human wouldn’t depart from the kitchen during her brief absence to let in the farm pony, and so she spoke quickly to the farmer in the main room of the book repository.  With as much detail as she could cram in, Twilight explained what had taken place since waking earlier in the morning, and what was now taking place.

“Shucks, Twi.  I’d like to see him for myself, though.  I saw him last night, after you went to bed...  I need to see him.  I want to ask him some stuff.”

“That’s...  That’s probably going to be pretty difficult, AJ.  He doesn’t really speak the language.  At all.  I mean, he can tell me if he’s hungry, or happy, or other basics like that, but not much else.”

The farmer frowned for a moment, before she let a small smile return to her features.  “I’m sure that if he picks up on the language as fast as you’re claiming, he’ll be able to answer my questions just fine.”  Twilight only raised an eyebrow as she let her friend pass her and enter the kitchen.  The human was busy devouring the rather large amount of food on the table in front of him, and he failed to notice the new arrivals.  At least, Twilight suspected that he didn’t notice, as there was no change in either his activity or stance.

“Abderus.”  The human looked up from his food and looked first at Twilight, and then the orange coated mare.  His eyes narrowed for a moment before he stood, grabbed his chair, and moved it to the far side of the table.  His eyes never left the farmer, and Twilight could see his pupils were dilated.  Before things could get out of hoof, though, Twilight calmly approached the fearful human.  She pointed a hoof at Applejack.  “Applejack.  Friend.”  She hoped that her earlier explanation of the word friend, based solely in pure emotions and feelings, had stuck.  “She’s a friend, Abderus.  Applejack is a friend.”

The human looked at Twilight for a moment before he looked back at the farmer.  “Applejack?”  His brow furrowed quite a bit, and then he gasped sharply.  Twilight took a half step back at the outburst.  After a moment the human held up an object, a proud smile on his face.  “Apple!”  The apple in his hand had a sizable bite taken out of its side, but that didn’t take away from its state as an apple.  Without a pause, the human then pointed at Applejack.  “Applejack!”  He looked between the farmer and the produce several times before he started laughing.  “Applejack!  Apple!”  The laughter lingered for a moment before he realized that he was the only one laughing, and his laughter died quickly.

Applejack looked between the human and Twilight for a moment before her gaze settled firmly on the alicorn.  “Was he laughing at me, Twi?”

“I don’t really know, AJ.  I don’t think so, but I couldn’t really tell you.”

“Applejack!”  Both mares looked at the human as he stared pointedly at the farmer.  The human seemed to struggle for a moment as he looked at the apple in his hand.  He began speaking in his own language, some Equestrian sprinkled in as he likely tried to reason out what he wanted to say.  The alien dialect shedded no information about either his language or his culture that either mare could use.  “Applejack night.  Abderus tired, Applejack.”  The human looked increasingly frustrated as he tried to communicate with the mares before he finally rested his head in his hands, several deep breaths escaping him.

“Calm, Abderus.”  Twilight approached the human slowly, her steps gentle, in order to create as little noise as possible.

“I think I get it, Twi.”  Twilight stopped her approach at Applejack’s words, and she turned to look at the farmer.  “He saw me last night, and I saw him.  That’s part of why I wanted to come back.  Not only because I said I would, but because that... er, Human, is one heck of a pony.”

“He’s not a pony, AJ.  He’s not even from the same familial origin as us, for more reasons than just appearance.  I mean, I think so, at least.  What little we covered on paper leads me to believe that he’s more closely related to monkeys than he is ponies.  Homo Sapiens, I think, was the term he used for his species.  But, that small visual similarity aside, there’s no possible way he could be related to anything on our planet.”

“Whatever he’s called, I was hoping I could talk with him some.”  Twilight looked between Applejack and Abderus for a moment before she nodded, gesturing to one of the chairs at the table.  Applejack took the offered seat, and Twilight took a seat as well.  Applejack looked at the human for a moment before she started speaking.  “This is Twilight’s home.”  She gestured at the library in a wide sweeping move.  “Twilight’s home.  She sleeps here.  She lives here.”  She pointed at herself.  “I live on the farm.  I sleep at Sweet Apple Acres.  Not here, on the farm.”

The human nodded slowly, his expression one of only slight confusion.  “Twilight live library?”  Both mares nodded, and the human nodded back.  “Applejack live farm?”  Another nod followed.  “Abderus no live library.”  Applejack was quick to nod, but Twilight was more hesitant.  “Library Twilight home.  Farm Applejack home.”  The human opened his mouth to speak again, but then he shut his mouth, his expression rapidly shifting through a wide range of different emotions.  “Abderus...”  He stopped for a moment, his expression shifting to sadness.  He pointed at himself.  “I?”  Twilight nodded.  “I want go home.”  Abruptly, the human stood, sending both mares into a slight panic at the change in demeanor.  “I go...”  He stopped for a moment before speaking rapidly in his own language.

The human started walking towards the door to the main room of the library, but Twilight put herself between the pilot and the doorway.  “No.”  The human didn’t stop his advance, but he did look down at Twilight.  “Abderus, stop.  Wait.”  When it was clear that the human wasn’t going to stop, Twilight held the human aloft in her magic, ignoring the growing protests.  “Abderus Ganymede!”  The human flailed within Twilight’s magical grasp for several moments longer before he suddenly stopped, and rotated himself to look away from both mares.

“Twi, I think you’re making him angry.”  Twilight looked at Applejack for a moment before she looked back at the suspended human.  Quickly, Applejack moved in front of the human, her expression softening when she saw the man's frown.  “Abderus?”  The pilot failed to show any sign of hearing her, so Applejack reached out a hoof and gently prodded one of the human’s legs.  “Abderus?”  This time he looked up at the mare, and she gave him a small smile.  “Where do you want to go?”

Rather than answer, the human just pointed a hand straight up.  His gaze shifted from sad to angry, and then he flailed violently against his magical bonds before his shoulders slumped.  “Want go home.  See home.”  His brow furrowed as he closed his eyes, his mouth silently mouthing words.  “Want see...  ship?”

“You want to see a ship?”

“I ship.”  The human paused for a moment before he frowned.  “Want Equestrian.  More Equestrian.  Want see Abderus ship.”

Applejack nodded to the human before looking at Twilight.  “He--”

“I heard, AJ.”  Twilight walked around the human so she could look at him as she spoke.  “Tonight, Abderus.  We go tonight.  No run?”  The human just glared at Twilight for a moment before he nodded.  The magical field slowly faded around the human, and once it vanished completely the human dropped unceremoniously onto the floor, his rear taking the brunt of the impact.  He winced in pain, but quickly stood before walking to the door.  Applejack shot Twilight a curious look, and Twilight just returned the look with a small smile.  “I have to trust him not to run, AJ.  I don’t want to scare him, or make him angry.  And that means that I have to trust him.”

“You’re going to let him go around the house without keeping an eye on him?”

Twilight shook her head before she started heading towards the door, and into the main library.  “While I was holding him I started working some small spells into him.  Tiny ones that just let me know his general location.”  She frowned for a moment.  “I don’t like doing it, though.  And, to make it worse, I have to tie it to my own magical reserves, since he has none.”  Before Twilight could continue, though, a knock sounded at the door.  “It’s open, come on in.”  Both mares were more than a bit surprised to see Rainbow Dash walk in, her wound covered in a large bandage.  “Dash?  What are you doing here?  Shouldn’t you be getting some rest, or something?”

Rainbow Dash just waved a hoof at Twilight before wincing just a bit.  “Nah, Twi, it’s fine.  Besides, I’m not going to let some little scratch like that hold me back.  And I wanted to see this monster that you’ve got here.”

“He’s not a monster, Dash.”  Rainbow’s gaze moved to Applejack as she spoke.  “He’s a thinking being.  From what I can see, he’s at least trying to get along with us.  We spoke to each other for a bit, too.”

Dash snorted before she started walking over to the two mares.  “I bet he’s just a...”  She stopped herself at a sharp glare from Twilight.

“He’s not an agent sent to gather discrete reconnaissance data, Dash.”

The pegasus looked down for a moment.  “I wasn’t going to say that, Twi.  Anyway, I was hoping to at least get a good look at the thing--”

“Human,”  Twilight said.

“The human, that stabbed me.”

Twilight looked pensive for a moment before she looked back at Dash.  “I guess.  But I don’t really know if he’ll want to talk to you, or something.  I mean, maybe he’ll want to finish what he started.  Or, maybe, he’ll be too ashamed.  We have no cultural backing for what his people would do in such a situation.  Hay, our own culture would have trouble with such a situation.  Some individual exempt from the laws being forced to confront somepony that they assaulted?  I don’t know how to deal with that.”

Dash looked worried for a moment before she regained her usual confidence.  “I’ll be fine, Twi.  You and AJ have been around him all morning, and the two of you are just fine.”

“Okay, I guess you’ve got a point, however small.”  Twilight motioned for Dash and AJ to follow.  “Just be cautious around him.  He reacts to things a lot different than a pony would.  He doesn’t seem very tactile, either.  Every time I tried to examine him, even just his hands, he immediately pulled away.”

“So he doesn’t like to be touched?”  The pegasus received a quick nod from Twilight, and she just smiled.  “Alright, that’s fine.  Anything else to be aware of?”

“He speaks only very little of our language, but I think he can understand a bit more than he lets on.  When he speaks, try to interpret it in a way that makes sense in context, even if it doesn’t make total sense right away.  He doesn’t know how to conjugate verbs very well, and I doubt he has any grasp on the finer laws of grammar.”

Applejack let out a quick laugh.  “He’s been here a day, Twilight.  I’m amazed he’s got as good a grasp on the language as he does.”

The trio stopped in front of Abderus’ small room, and he just looked at the three of them from his spot on the floor.  Arranged in front of him were several dozen pieces of parchment covered in a plethora of his own languages alien symbols.  His neutral expression quickly changed to one of fear when he looked at Dash, and he started to edge his way backwards.

Twilight entered the room first, her expression gentle.  “Calm.”  She pointed at the pegasus with one hoof.  “Rainbow Dash.  Friend.”

The human stopped moving backwards at Twilight’s words, and he looked between the three mares, his gaze lingering on Dash.  “Friend?”  He looked down at his pieces of parchment for a moment before he reached out and grabbed one.  Illustrated, poorly, on the parchment was an image of a knife.  “No angry?”  There was a look of fear in his eyes, and his gaze kept flitting between the three mares.  He looked down for a moment, away from the mares as he began rapidly speaking in his own language.  After a moment, he looked back at Rainbow Dash.  “Rainbow Dash no angry Abderus?”

The pegasus let a small smile come to her face before she shook her head.  “No.”  The human visibly relaxed before he dropped the parchment back into the pile from whence it came.  Dash, meanwhile, turned to look at Twilight, a smile on her face.  “Fluttershy explained what she thought happened back at his spaceship.”  She glanced at the human quickly before subtly moving to put the alicorn between herself and the omnivore.  “She said that it probably had to do with the fact that he’s scared senseless, and we’re a bunch of ‘weird looking ponies’ that he’s probably never seen before.  She compared him to some of the animals in the Everfree.”

Twilight noticed her change in position, but decided not to comment on it.  “As far as I can tell, that probably isn’t too far off.  He’s incredibly cautious with most of the things that I’ve shown him, and even the things he accepts are still to be treated with caution.  The only thing he hasn’t had a problem with is parchment and quills.”

Applejack looked over at some of the parchment that was close to her, and she chuckled softly.  “From what I can see, he’s got just as much a knack for books as you do, Twi.  Maybe even more.  Not even you can write as much as he is in so short a time.”

“Not quite true, AJ.”  Twilight grabbed a few discarded sheets of parchment, moving them closer.  “Most of his writing isn’t writing, but math instead.  And the little writing I’ve seen is just scribbled out.”



	

Abderus scowled at the page before him, his attempt at solving time dilation effects he might have suffered coming out wrong yet again.  There was simply no way that time could work that way, and so he knew that he’d have to ask HAL, if he could, and there was a way to establish a link with the orbiting engine.  The ponies, for that’s what they were, Abderus had learned, were clearly talking about him.  It irked him to no end to be the subject of a conversation that he couldn’t participate in, but he knew that he’d just have to deal until he could learn the language.

His own inability to grasp the concepts being presented to him were making him tense and irritable, but he knew that he couldn’t express his anger at them, or he might insult them in some way that could cost him his life, or something worse.

Still, Twilight had promised him a trip tonight, and he was willing to wait until then for some more answers.  Answers, that is, that he had no guarantee of getting.  Still, it was better than a complete lack of anything, and so Abderus turned back to his writing, the departure of the mares taking place without his notice.



	

Twilight led the way through the forest, her horn glowing enough to cast a bright light on the surrounding area, and also projecting a field to prevent the approach of undesirables.  The trip was only being undertaken by Abderus and Twilight, since the alicorn dearly wished to avoid as much exposure as she could.  She didn’t want to risk sending the town into a panic, and so, even though it was well past midnight, she had cast a spell of invisibility upon both herself and the human.  She’d allowed the spell to end once they reached the forest, and so she could now keep an eye on the human without having to rely on her magic.

As they reached the massive furrow in the ground Abderus paled a bit as he simply took in the scene.  His ship was at the far end of the trench, and without a word the human started down it, not even looking to see if the mare was following.  Each step towards his destination resulted in his posture changing just a bit, but his facial expression betrayed nothing.  The human froze when he reached the stasis barrier Twilight had placed, and he shot an angry glare at Twilight.

“I didn’t do anything, Abderus.  At least, not now.”  He didn’t stop glaring, and so Twilight quickly altered her spell to allow Abderus to enter without feeling the tingling that was notable for stasis magic.  He quickly approached his ship after that, walking several laps around it before finally stopping at an opening.  Twilight recognized it as being the opening below which they had found the human, but she didn’t mention it to Abderus.  As she looked at the side of the ship she saw the human clamber, slowly, into the opening he must have originally emerged from.

He winced a bit as he dragged himself over the lip of the opening, but once in the doorway he stood upright.  After just a moment of waiting, the human moved deeper into the ship, quickly vanishing from sight.  The alicorn hesitated for less than a heartbeat before she leapt up into the ship, her wings flaring to add a graceful edge to her leap.  The first thing that the mare noticed, more prevalent than the lack of the human’s presence, was the fact that everything inside the ship was made of either metal, or some hard white material that she couldn’t identify.  She heard some sounds from the human, and for a moment she was torn between examining the new material, or heading after Abderus.  Her concern for the human won out, though, and she quickly moved to where the human was.

She looked on in a mix of horror and awe as the human wove his way  through the mangled wreckage of the room, a massive tree branch acting as the single largest object in the room.  The human was undaunted by it, though, as he moved through the room, adjusting various panels, and removing some altogether.  After about five minutes, and several dozen exclamations from the human, he finally stood in front of a large black panel, a look of frustration on his face.  He just looked at it for a moment before he heaved a massive sigh.

As he did so, a single flashing red light caught Twilight’s attention, and she pointed at it.  “Abderus, look.”  The pilot looked first at the mare before following her hoof to the source of her interest.  A wide smile came to his face as he saw the light, and he rushed over to it as fast as his damaged body would allow.  He began speaking rapidly to nothing in particular as he began rapidly pressing buttons, and subtly adjusting any number of other controls.  After several tense moments there was a subtle rumble from behind Twilight, and she turned around just in time to see the ship’s lights come back to life.  The rumble grew increasingly loud for several tense moments before it dulled to a barely felt thrumming in the metal beneath her hooves.

“Ship awake.”  Twilight looked over her shoulder to the smiling human, and she felt a smile of her own come to her face.  Twilight, now that there were more lights, allowed her own spell to fade, so that the ship lights could do the job of illumination.  The human started looking at the various screens around the room, his eyes growing wider as he did so.  A strange voice, seemingly from nowhere, sounded out throughout the ship, and Abderus looked around for a moment before he spoke in his own language.  The first voice responded, and after a moment a blue sphere appeared, in mid air, before Twilight.  She took several steps backwards at the sudden appearance.  The human approached Twilight, his smile wider than before.  “Calm, Twilight.”  He pointed at the blue sphere.  “Friend.”

“Abderus, what is this?”  She attempted to prod the sphere with a hoof, but the limb simply passed through it as though nothing was there.  She did so again, her brow furrowing as she found herself at a loss.  “Magic?”  She looked at the human for a moment, and he just laughed.

“No magic.”  He spoke in his own language for a moment, and then the blue sphere started to change.  Patches of green, brown, white, and tan started appearing all across the surface, until, just a minute after it started, the changes stopped, and the sphere began to rotate.  Silence, other than the thrumming, persisted for several long moments before the human spoke again.  “Twilight home.”  The alicorn glanced at the human for a moment before she looked back at the sphere.  As she did so, she noticed a small blinking dot on the surface of the sphere, and, in a flash, she recognized the object before her.  It was, rendered in near perfect detail, a globe of Equus.  The blinking dot was located right where Ponyville would be, and she reached out a hoof towards the dot, somehow expecting that something should happen if she were to touch it.

Sadly, and predictably, nothing occurred as her hoof passed through the image.  Abderus just smiled a bit before he looked away from the image.  He did something on one of the panels, and then when he turned back around, his smile was gone.  The sphere changed quickly, the various patches of color shifting in a heartbeat, until, just seconds after starting, the process stopped.  The landmasses were all different than before, but it was still so familiar looking.  It was, also, a bit smaller than Equus had been.  As Twilight watched the sphere rotate she admired the clouds, for that was what the white blurs had to be, as they moved in their delicate dance around this new world.  After looking at it for several minutes she looked at Abderus to find his eyes were filled with tears.  “Abderus home.”  He waited for a moment before he spoke again.  “Earth.”

Twilight tilted her head at the alien word, noting with interest the way he said it.  Twilight pointed a hoof at the planet, and repeated the word the human had used.  The human looked at the mare before giving a nod.  “That’s your planet, Abderus?  It’s beautiful.”  Another nod answered her question, and the mare felt her ears droop.  “I’m sorry.”

The pilot rested his back against the smooth walls of his ship, and then he slowly lowered himself to the ground.  His gaze stayed on the planet, though, and at a word the image shrank down to about the size of Twilight’s head.  It moved closer to the human, and when he reached out a hand the sphere seemed to hover just above his hand.  When he finally dropped his hand, the sphere stayed where it was, still rotating.  No home.  Home gone.  Abderus no home.  Twilight home.”

The mare felt the sadness as much as she heard it, and so she moved closer to the human, her empathy outweighing her fear and her desire to remain detached from what was to her just a science project.  The human made no move to stop her approach as he stared at the rotating image.  When she was just a step away from the human she stopped, and sat herself next to the human, joining him in silent contemplation of his planet.  She inched a bit closer to the human before gently leaning into him, offering a shoulder to lean on, and someone to talk to.

The human’s arm came up, slowly, and started pointing at various places on the planet.  His first word was also his shakiest as the planet’s surface zoomed in on the coast of one of the continents.  “Home...”