CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE
The Company of K-9
Again, it might have been the Janx, but when the lights faltered and I stopped dead in my tracks I had a sudden flashback to one of Sunny’s endless collection of 2-D ‘movies’. In this case it was a Bittish film by Hammer Studios from the mid-twentieth century entitled Five Million Years to Equestria. A technician working in an underground environment grumbles when the lights went out for him. “Where was Luna when the loights went out? …In th’ flippin’ dark, Mate!”
I shook myself as the Mare In My Head raised an eyebrow at the memory and began to run a discrete systems check on my motor functions. She tsked at the readouts but didn’t say a word. I ignored her when two things became apparent. The first thing I realized was that there was something under my right hoof, something that didn’t crunch into progressively smaller fragments under my weight. The other thing was that I could see!
My night vision is, of course, superior to that of a Terrestrial Earth Pony. On Equestris we see about twenty percent deeper into the red end of the spectrum than our unmodified siblings. (When I revealed that fact during Basic Training the Eye Doctor who examined me…a Cobalt Pegasus with a rainbow colored mane and tail… in an effort to appear unflappable in the presence of an Augment no doubt, quickly pointed out that Terrestrial Pony vision was ‘Twenty percent cooler!’ than Equestrin vision. I let the matter drop and proceeded to pass the exam with flying colors.) I was surprised to notice that there was light streaming out from behind me. I turned my head to confirm the phenomena. Sure enough the lights behind me, in the direction I was going, were still lit but the lights in the places I’d just been were out.
I was didn’t understand just what kept the lights, in all their variety, going much less what kind of malfunction it would take to knock them out. The Doctor said that he was a thousand years old, if the TARDIS was at least as old as he was I could see how a certain amount of degradation would be present in the system. The Timelord seemed to be a whiz at patching things together at a moments notice. If his ship was falling apart around his little ears I could see how he kept in practice. I remembered the odds and ends that adorned the Console in the Control Room with a sudden sense of alarm! I was feeling a whole lot less that safe wandering around lost in this self-professed Madpony’s mobile labyrinth.
I shifted my weight and bent to retrieve the thing under my boot. My fingers wrapped around the ever-so-faintly warm sarium krellide powercell. It would take more than a quarter-ton of stumbling Equestrin to breach the casing… thank goodness… but it just seemed unnecessarily careless to let the thing just lie there. I stuck it in my pocket along with the Janx bottle. After a moment I transferred it to the opposite pocket. Two potential disasters in contact with each other were more of a risk than I cared to take just then!
I took a breath and turned about, heading for the lights before me. I could still smell the Alien booze in my sinuses. My head swam and I reached out with one hoof to steady myself against the wall. It took more concentration than I would have like to keep myself going in a straight line. Touching the wall as I went helped and I was glad Sunny wasn’t around to see me; she’d have a field day!
Once I’d built up my momentum it was easier going. The only time I faltered was when I passed my first light fixture. The very moment it dropped behind me it went out, just like that. When I turned to look the thing had faded from dull red into blackness.
I was ready for the next one. As I came up on it I turned to keep it in sight as I went by, doing a slow and rather unsteady pirouette in the process. The instant the center of my mass progressed past it the damn thing dimmed and faded away like the scented oil lamps in our honeymoon cottage did when Sunny turned them down ‘way back on distant Earth that night we were married and she pushed my Augment physiology to its limit…
I realized I was blushing as I made an effort to keep focused on the situation. Ok, it wasn’t some sort of malfunction in the lighting system. I was being guided… or herded. In my slightly pickled frame of mind just then, the idea the idea made me angry. I picked up speed, setting my jaw and striding down the corridor. I fended myself off the wall only about every third step and resolutely ignored the occasional doors. No more distractions! I wanted to get over to the Werewolf and get this job done one way or another and get on with our mission. I wanted to get my Ship back Home intact. I wanted to get back to honest exploration and the more or less anticipatable hazards of the job. I wanted to wrangle with Starfleet Bureaucracy instead of ancient insanity. I wanted my Magic in manageable, scientifically quantifiable doses. I wanted my life back with Sunny, Tyllae, and our pending foal. And, if to achieve that, I had to shove that miserable Prism down Discord’s grinning throat, twist it ninety degrees and pull him inside out then so be it. I’d do it in a heartbeat and hope it hurt like Hell! He had it coming if only one thousandth of what I heard about him was true. He was irredeemable. Even if we were occasionally repentant it was never a permanent condition. If I had the chance, and I didn’t have to be a Timelord to see that events had conspired to put us in this place at this time, I’d gladly put the bastard down once and for all. No court in the Federation, the Orion Syndicates, or even the Klingon Empire would convict me. Celestia herself, if the tales were true, cut him some slack… once… and this is how he repaid that trust. If she had a problem with my resolve, well, she could take it up with me… if we ever got to meet face to face. Me, I’m just an Equestrin and we see things differently. We cull the insane back Home… and Discord was long, long overdue for culling.
Another TARDIS bulkhead occurred and I swerved my way through it. The corridor had changed again, becoming something more conventional to my way of thinking with a pale brown smooth composite floor that melded seamlessly with walls of the same stuff that narrowed slightly where they met the off-white ceiling. Narrow glowstrips ran along both sides where wall met ceiling, fading into darkness as I went along with murder in my heart and alien hooch in my veins.
The occasional doors had frames of dark brown, narrower at the tops than the bottoms, just like the corridor. They looked like pocket doors like the ones on the Hermes, only these opened side-by-side rather than the traditional up and down ones the Federation used. They were colored in muted brown, red, or green and were labeled in some sort of radial script like wheels that were connected to one another by fine straight lines like wheels that were connected to one another by fine straight lines like wheels that were connected to one another by fine straight lines like wheels that were connected to one another by fine straight lines like wheels that were connected to one another by fine straight lines. The effect reminded me of a child’s model of a molecule made of modeling clay representing atoms and dowels to represent the atomic bonds. I wondered if this was Gallopfreyan writing… why would the Doctor label his doors in any another language? Given the, um, eccentric nature of the Timelord, however, anything was possible!
I shook my head again against the insidious effects of the damn Janx and the Mare In My Head increased power to Life Support to purge the stuff from my system faster. I noticed I was developing a headache and a sour stomach. When I brought this up to her attention the little tyrant primly pointed out that I could expect nothing else from drinking any alien booze that came my way and rather pointedly suggested that I take my mind off it by getting back to the task at hoof. She even pulled up a display listing my priorities and ticked them off with a pointer one by one. Find a comm panel or something similar; failing that, find the Doctor, find Sunny, make plans, get over to the Werewolf, and… dusting off an hoary old Equestrin chestnut… Get The Job Done!
I suppressed an urge to put sneezing powder on her daffodils and concentrated on putting one hoof in front of the other in proper sequence. The corridor had begun to curve and I was determined not to go weaving from one wall to the other as I went.
A sudden noise from beyond the curve made me come to a sudden halt, planting my leading hoof hard and making me rock. I felt my ears poke up out of my mane as I blinked blearily.
Something… no, several somethings, were approaching making quiet whirring noises as they came on. They were low to the ground, whatever they were and were moving just about as fast as I was until a second ago. The Doctor’s warning to run if anything approached echoed in my brain… but just where was I supposed to go? I dropped into the best semblance of a combat stance as I could manage and waited…
A boxy thing, about the size of a suitcase, came into view. An automaton of some sort, not unlike the kind we send into damaged tunnels on Equestris to gauge the damage. Its main body was shaped something like a truncated pyramid with a flat top. The whole thing was a series of flat planes and angles made of some flat gray synthetic with dull bronze highlights and a little chrome highlighting. Affixed to the front on the end of a very short sort of a neck was a sensor cluster with a flat red optical input with a pair of glowing red photocells in it, two parabolic scanners were mounted on top and what I took to be some sort of sensor probe mounted at the very front. What made it truly unique, though, was the way the equipment was arranged. The housing was put together in such a way as to suggest a head. A distinctly canine head or at least a robots idea of what a canine head would look like. The parabolics were arranged on top where ears would be and the sensor probe was stuck onto an angular muzzle where the nose would be. The optical sensor was a red, rectangular plate where the eyes would be. A sort of high-tech pooch analogue wearing minimalist sunglasses. There were no legs, the thing rolled along on some sort of drive wheels or perhaps tracks concealed beneath it.
There was even a short tail sticking out the back end like an aerial as well as flat panel with push buttons mounted on the things back. On its flank it bore an identification designation. In quaint, old fashioned computer-esque script it bore the legend, ‘K-9.1’ in white.
A flash of color caught my attention. Around the things neck was a plastic collar. Its color scheme was reminiscent of the scarf I’d propped Sunny’s head up with back in the Control Room. Hanging off the collar was a circular tag, dove gray in color with seven silver bubbles on it.
It wasn’t alone. It was leading a small convoy of toy vehicles less than half its size consisting of a dump truck, a bulldozer, a mobile crane, and a small vacuum truck. Riding atop the cab of the dump truck was a tiny Smarty Pants doll with turquoise blue button eyes with a sappy grin stitched onto its muzzle. The sides of every little vehicle bore the logo of seven tiny bubbles.
Ditzy, apparently, had a lot of spare time on her hooves…
Just before the improbable troop drew abreast of me the dog-bot dipped its head in a nod. I jumped a little in surprise as it spoke in a chirpy, synthesized tenor voice.
“Good afternoon, Mistress.” It said, primly. Its eyes flashed as it enunciated each syllable.
The little parade swung wide of my position to hug the far wall as they passed. As they entered the darkened corridor behind me little headlamps flicked on and tiny tail lights dwindled into the gloom and disappeared…
I played the scene back through my memory a few times and compared notes with The Mare In My Head just to verify that it was real and not just some Janx-inspired hallucination. She thought the whole ‘K-9’ thing was hilarious, going so far as to bring up the words ‘K-9’ and ‘Canine’ on her display by way of illustration in case I didn’t get it. Sometimes I wonder about her…
My first inclination was to just bang my head against the wall a few times until it all made sense. After a moment, though, I just gave up and let the absurdity of it just happen. I smirked, then giggled, then propped myself against the wall and laughed quietly to myself until I had to wipe the tears from my eyes. I had to admit that it felt good.
I must have been at it for a while. In no time at all, it seemed, I saw tiny lights reappear in the darkened corridor. The convoy was back with the remains of my balephaser piled into the bed of the dump truck.
Dog-bot stopped as it reached me, elevating its tail as a signal to the vehicles behind it just like an old-style traffic cop directing traffic. It raised its head and turned it to regard me. The parabolic ‘ears’ traversed several times, doing a scan no doubt.
“Are you well, Mistress?” It asked.
I wiped my eyes a final time and made an effort to stand up straight.
“I’m fine, just fine.” I had to suppress another giggle.
The ear-antennae scanned again before it spoke.
“Your physiological condition contra-indicates that.” It stated helpfully. “Lachrymal discharge from the eyes of mammals is generally indicative of pain or emotional distress. The only other option available in my database is a reaction to extreme amusement. Which state describes your present situation?”
I blinked, frankly bemused!
“I’m actually feeling rather surreal, thank you for asking.”
“That is understandable.” It nodded its improbable head again, somehow displaying an unmistakable note of condescension I might add! “I am detecting the presence of a partially-filled bottle of volatile spirits on your person. According to my bio-scans it seems extremely likely you have consumed a portion of said spirits. Is this correct, Mistress?”
I looked away, embarrassed. “Well…just a couple of swallows for medicinal purposes, you understand. It seems that I’m prone to ‘Time-sickness’. And my name is Starry, Starry-Eyes, not ‘Mistress’.”
The head nodded again and the stiff little tail wagged twice with a faint whirring noise. I had the impression that the thing found me amusing.
“I am called K-9, Starry Eyes. I am pleased to meet you.” It… he… cocked his head as he looked up at me.
“Janx Spirit is eighty-nine point seven percent grain alcohol, nine percent water, and one percent vegetable extracts containing various psychoactive elements… as well as traces of fusel oil. My scans indicate that, despite your mass, you are a lightweight when it comes to consuming liquor.”
“Well, I’m not the most experienced drinker… Hay! What about my mass, pipsqueak?”
“Belligerence is a classic indication of inebriation in most lifeforms. You should not be wandering around the TARDIS in your condition, Starry-Eyes. Are you able to proceed or should I summon assistance? There is no motorized travel chair that can accommodate you but I can summon a small cargo handler with gravity-nullifying capability.” He paused, waggling his parabolics again. “Or perhaps two would be appropriate.”
“Keep it up, dog-boy, and you’ll need a few more dump trucks to haul your…” I stopped myself with an effort and took a deep breath before continuing. I gave the snarky little bot a hard look.
“You’re baiting me. Why?”
“I am merely stimulating the release of adrenaline to counteract the effects of inebriation.” Given the nature of his face, ‘deadpanning’ an expression should be his default expression… but this particular bots voice, despite the limits of its vocal synthesizer, got lots of mileage out of his ability to express emotions!
“Sure you are!” I admitted dryly, eyeing the little fink askance.
“One cannot argue with the results, can one?” The robotic head nodded. If K-9 could, I’m sure he would have been smirking!
I reigned myself in. There’s no point in being angry with a robot, right?
“Based on your vocabulary… at first…” I gave him a meaningful glare. “I would have pegged you for being programmed by Vulcans. But I daresay you have no idea who they are, don’t you?”
“The Vulcans are the two indigenous dominant species of Epsilon Eridani 2-A. The two species are the mammalian Sehlat and the reptiloid Le-Matya.” The little bot informed me. ‘Vulcan’ is the term coined by Terrestrial Ponies for their world since the Vulcan language is too difficult for the average Pony to comprehend. Their culture is notable for its complete devotion to the concepts of rational thinking and nonviolence as well as an almost complete suppression of emotions since these are perceived as obstacles to the achievement of Logic. Theirs is a world of scientists and scholars…”
“All right, all right!” I waved him off. “I’ll concede that your personality matrix is beyond even Vulcan cyber technology. Where were you constructed?”
“I am a collaborative effort of the Doctor and Mistress Ditzy-Doo, constructed from plans already existing in the Doctor’s database. I am an improved model of the original K-9 unit.” The red photocells locked onto me as the mechanical head turned to regard me. “Like you, I am an upgrade.” The parabolic ears waggled in a way that simply screamed impishness. “In my case, though, I am a much more successful upgrade than could be achieved by mere eugenics. You are a good effort nonetheless, given the nature of what your species have to work with. Perhaps in a few more generations your people will be almost at my level of perfection.”
If I still had my tricorder I’m sure the smugness indicators would have been rocketing clear off the top of the scales!
“I’m glad you cleared that up.” I said frostily. “…My second choice would have been Tellarite.”
“The Tellarites are the inhabitants of 61 Cygni-IV.” K-9 promptly recited. “Theirs is a race of upright biped mammalians with a matriarchal society, the second species to join the Federation of Pastures after the Vulcans. They are known for the aggressive, chauvinistic attitude they display toward other species that is generally expressed as a perception of inherent, self-evident, unwarranted superiority.”
“Yes.” I conceded. “You can see how I could make that assumption.” K-9 lifted his head a little higher and was on the verge of saying something, if the sudden flash of those photocell eyes were any indication, but I didn’t give the little so-and-so the chance. “You’re exceptionally well informed, especially given that neither you nor the Doctor aren’t native to our little portion of reality.”
The dog-bot adjusted his position, doing a three-point turn to face me straight on before he spoke.
“And what brings you to that conclusion, Mistress?” He asked curiously.
“Deductive reasoning based upon all the data available to me.” I began, getting an inordinate amount of pleasure in confounding the little know-it-all. “Granted, the Federation is only a small part of this Galaxy but it contains dozens of intelligent species. If there were a race of Time-travelling superbeings somehow in charge of keeping History on track they would have left a trace in somepony’s mythology. Given the premise that History is subject to being altered by malevolent forces these interventions cannot go unnoticed. Somepony somewhere would have noticed and documented such extraordinary events. There are gods and demigods aplenty in Alien folklore but definitely no ‘Timelords’!”
K-9 digested this for a moment then, “The process of correcting the Timeline would, of itself, make such beings inherently unknowable would it not? In essence there would be no problem in the first place and no reason, therefore, to take note.”
I leveled a forefinger at him. “You’re talking of a classic paradox. Can an error that never existed still be called an error? You’re indulging in semantics and not provable scientific data.”
“And yet here you stand in the TARDIS, Mistress Starry-Eyes. A functioning Time and Space craft at present in a state of Temporal flux relative to the Universe.”
“Which proves my point!” I waved an unsteady arm at our surroundings. “The Doctor, the TARDIS, and you have to come from somewhere else. You’re new to our Universe. You must be from someplace… some reality… that shares many characteristics with our own.” I frowned. “Which does not explain just how you could have amassed such detailed information about our reality… or are there Vulcans and Tellarites and Ponies where you come from?”
“None whatsoever. However, Earth is a very important world. Its History is intimately tied up with that of many other worlds. The Doctor has dedicated himself to protecting it for reasons of his own. Your Earth occupies a similar situation in this particular reality. Though the dominant species there is a sort of evolved hairless primate referred to as a ‘Human’.”
That rang a bell from somewhere! I’d heard that term before, but the source data was simply too ridiculous to believe.
“Wait! A Hoo-min being?”
“It’s pronounced ‘Hue-man’.” The little bot corrected.
“But that’s just silly! It’s right up there with Bighoof, Merponies, and little almond-eyed grey ponies in flying saucers kidnapping people for anal probes!” I protested. “That’s delusion, not data. Sensationalism and not Science…”
“…Alliteration and not analysis!” K-9 put in.
“Whatever!” I snapped. “You’re equating rank publicity-seeking on the part of individuals with a desire for notoriety with concrete fact…!” I paused, an idea making its way upstream against the Janx.
“But if two realities were so closely tied, so similar in so many ways…” I shook my head in an effort to clear away some of the electric green fumes. “…The Doctor said something earlier about multiple Universes like progressively dimmer shadows of a primary source.” I took a deep breath and collected myself. “It’s an improvable concept, just a conjecture made in an effort to reconcile aspects of current Physics with observable phenomena. Like the extra dimensions needed in String Theory back in the Twentieth Century. …If I wasn’t drunk this wouldn’t make so much sense!”
“If I may be so bold…” K-9 said, as gently as his synthesized voice could, “You are basing your worldview upon empirical data. You are correct as far as your ability to perceive allows you to be. You lack, however, the ability to take in the larger picture. The Doctor is able to do so. It is simply a matter of having access to the properly advanced technology. At one point in history electricity, magnetism, and subspace were phenomena that were perceived but not understood until the technology existed to quantify their properties.”
“All of which is to say that we, as a species, will understand it all when we’re older!” I said, impatiently. “You’ll forgive me if I’m not content to get a metaphorical pat on the head and be told it will all make sense in the end. I need answers not platitudes, damnit!”
“My information comes from the Doctor’s database. The Doctor receives his information from the Vortex. The Vortex is a Temporal Singularity in which all of Time exists at once. The Doctor is able to look into the Vortex and extract the information he needs. The process is invariably fatal to non-Timelords and extremely difficult even for him. Is that simple enough for you, Mistress?”
I sighed and gave the little bot a dirty look. “Simple enough, yes, satisfying enough, no… but it’s all I’m about to get, isn’t it?”
“That is correct, Mistress.”
“…There’s a lot of the Doctor in you personality matrix, do you know that?”
“While Mistress Do assembled most of my hardware, the Doctor is responsible for much of my software. I like to think, however, that I remain my own distinct entity. I am more than the sum of my parts.” The little bot said with just enough smugness to make me wish for a large hammer and an even larger electromagnet!
“…You’re an exasperating little mutt, you know that?”
“Affirmative, Mistress!” The robotic tail wagged while the stylized head nodded.
“Oh, for Ponies sake…!” I took another breath and decided to let it go for the moment. “Just answer me this, okay? This other universe… the one with the ‘hue-mans’… how did he come to spend so much time there, and why? He would stick out like a dilithium crystal in a bucket of gravel. Hard to keep a low profile while being so obviously Alien!”
“The Doctor did not always look the way he does now.”
I blinked. “Excuse me? I don’t understand.”
K-9 did another three-point turn to face away from me.
“Please refer to the visual display on my back, Mistress.” Below the keypad was a flat screen that glowed to life. It began displaying a series of still images of… beings. Their skin was bare of fur, except for the tops of their heads. The stuff that grew there grew in a bizarre range of styles in a rather narrow range of colors from silver-white to shades of brown. It was the Pony in me, I guess, that expected a little more color in their palettes. The lack of a proper muzzle made them rather disquieting and I had to ramp up my scientific detachment just to look at them, but after a few moments I was able to appreciate them as actual faces of people with distinct personalities. Personalities, I might add, not unlike those of any other Pony I’d met, a strange blend of alien and familiar that went a long way toward making them more acceptable to my Equine perceptions. One in particular… the fourth one… caught my eye, he had a curly mop of hair that did its best to overwhelm a wide-brimmed hat, a nose that came closest to being a proper muzzle, and a wide, frankly horsey smile that somehow put me at ease. Around his neck were wound lengths of a multicolored fabric…
“Hay!” I blurted out. “I recognize that scarf! Wasn’t that in the…”
“The Timelords…” The little bot squelched the comment. “In this alternate reality come from a world called Gallifrey. They, like the Timelords of Gallopfrey, have practical immortality in that, when a given body dies it discorporates and then re-incorporates in a different form. Physical attributes as well as personalities change but the core memories remain intact. The process is called ‘Regeneration’ and only the complete destruction of the body will halt it.” The images kept playing across the screen. Nine more faces came and went before the screen went dark.
“That bow tie and the coat look an awful lot like…”
But K-9 interrupted me again, damnit!
“Compare those images with these, Mistress.”
A new sequence of faces played across the screen. This time, though, they were familiar-looking equine faces… direct analogs of the hominids I’d just seen, though in a more conventional color scheme to my admittedly biased point of view! Interestingly enough, the face of the Timelord I’d met, the last of this current series, wasn’t the same as the last ‘hue-man’ face of the other.
The screen went dark and K-9 trundled about to face me again. He waited in silence for the inevitable questions…
Questions I had aplenty, but which ones first?
“Are there two sets of Timelords in two universes, or is this Doctor the same person existing in…” I searched for a phrase. “… Two, ah, frames of reference? Did he begin as a Pony or a Hominid?”
“The Doctor does not like to admit it…” Was there a note of gloating in that electronic voice? “… But there are gaps in his knowledge he cannot resolve… yet. The inability to resolve the questions irks him.”
“So even he doesn’t know, eh?” I grunted. “…It makes him seem a little bit more like the rest of us, doesn’t it, bringing him down to a more-or-less Pony level?”
“Speak for yourself, Mistress!”
I stifled a chuckle, as well as an urge to scratch behind those parabolic ears. “The Doctor gets under your skin with his attitude at times too, doesn’t he? But you’re still his friend in the end, aren’t you? You’re a good dog, K-9.”
The ears did their waggling act again. “Yes, Mistress!”
“… As well as a modest one! Sheesh! You and he are more alike than you realize, I think.” I didn’t give the little bot time to dispute the statement. “In any event, what difference does it make whether Gallifrey or Gallopfrey came first? That’s something for the Doctor to figure out. I’ve got bigger, tentacled fish to fry right now. I’m grateful for his help, even though I’m only a minor interlude in his career…”
“More than minor it would seem.” The little bot interjected.
I believed I sobered up by two orders of magnitude at that point! I caught K-9’s glowing red eyes with my own.
“The Doctor alluded to something like that earlier. You wouldn’t care to fill me in on the particulars, would you?”
The little head elevated a little to regard me steadfastly. Somepony told me once that a dog could never win a staring contest with a Pony. I suppose it was foolish of me to even try, given the fact I was trying to stare down a robot. Yet it was K-9 who dropped his gaze, lowering his head to gaze at my knees.
“The TARDIS we are in is an older model. Outmoded by the standards of the day when the Doctor stole it and most definitely obsolete by the time of the destruction of Gallopfrey. Many of its systems… most notably its ability to blend in with its surroundings… are in a state of disrepair. Yet it, too, has access to the Vortex and the complete knowledge of the timelines. How could it not? Like me it is a sentient being… and it has taken a fancy to the Doctor. She identifies with the crusade he has undertaken.”
“Hold on one rock-rubbing minute!” I butted in. “He stole, er, kidnapped the TARDIS?”
“That is correct, Mistress. He took it from a repair facility on Gallopfrey in his youth. Due to the complex way Timelords regard these devices it is not precisely regarded as kidnapping as such. The core elements of a TARDIS are a species of something very much like coral that grew in the seas of Gallopfrey. Too many Timelords, it seems, regard them as particularly talented animals rather than individuals.”
“You’ve already changed the subject once, pooch…” I warned.
“Understood, Mistress.” The robot dipped its head in acknowledgment. “The TARDIS by its nature knows more about the timelines than the Doctor can since his ability to perceive is hampered by the failure of the systems available to him. Therefore the TARDIS tries to bring the Doctor to where he needs to be as opposed to where he wants to be. The conflict between the two directives often causes the Doctor a loss of precise control over where and when he goes, to his chagrin. In the present case the TARDIS received a summons that allowed it to zero in on these spatio-temporal coordinates.”
“Tyllae!” I breathed, remembering.
“Correct, Mistress. The TARDIS had to come here. The summons allowed it to arrive at the most opportune moment, bringing the Doctor to where he would be of the most effectiveness.”
“And I figure into things… how?” I prompted.
“According to the information in the Vortex you command the starship that reunites the Princesses with the Pony race. This reunion revitalizes a Federation in doubt and traumatized by war and allows it to become an even greater force of peace and harmony for its members, neighbors, and, eventually, the Galaxy at large. All because you had the courage and faith to see if the Legends were true.”
K-9 paused, waiting for me to say something but I was rather taken aback. I’d never thought of myself as a particularly faithful person in regards to spirituality. I have my integrity and try to follow the code of honor we’ve established on Equestris. But as far as being a spiritual people…? We just don’t think that way back Home. Luna is the Princess we evoke in our speech… but mostly in cussing out some recalcitrant piece of equipment! Perhaps I never really knew my own culture or, perhaps, there were things about it I was never told.
K-9 continued.
“The being, Discord, has always been a wild card; a true element of Chaos that cannot or will not behave by any rules. It would seem that his power is beyond that which governs time and destiny. Prior to this time his actions have always been able to be counteracted or compensated for and history has been able, for the most part, the follow its proper course. Now, though, his actions threaten to completely break down the integrity of the timeline to unleash a state of Chaos that will engulf not just Equestria or the Earth, but everything, everywhere, and at every point in Time. The damage will spread backwards in Time. Past, Present, and Future will dissolve into formless Chaos as he, in effect, creates a new, alien sort of Universe to his own specifications. Or lack of specifications, given his nature.” The little bot added thoughtfully, before continuing on. “He has already inflicted damage to history the Doctor may be unable to repair. Conjecture: this may be why no historical records exist for you to validate the existence of the Timelords. Entire segments of the Future have already been compromised, the Past will follow suit unless he is stopped here and now.”
I rubbed my forehead and shut my eyes, stalling for time while The Mare In My Head coaxed and cudgeled my logic circuits into action against the ebbing tide of the Janx.
“Gallopfrey is destroyed, you say? Discord did that to stop the Timelords from interfering with him?” I hoped that the Doctor could mend his fences with his people long enough to bring their resources to bear on the mad God of Chaos. K-9, with true cybernetic dispassion, destroyed that hope.
“No, Mistress. The Doctor destroyed Gallopfrey to end the Time War… which in all probability was a manifestation of Discord’s design. The agents of Chaos come in many forms and their goals, in the final analysis, may not be solely their own whether they realize it or not.”
I got the impression of dark deeds in the past of the eccentric Timelord from Gallopfrey… but I never expected something like this!
“…He destroyed his own Homeworld?”
“Affirmative, Mistress.”
“By himself, it was his decision?”
“Affirmative, Mistress.”
The Mare In My Head looked on in exasperation as all my circuit breakers popped! I shook my head as she reset them.
“This is the buck Tyllae wanted to go to for help? …I’m not sure I like his methods!”
“The Doctor did not make the decision lightly or in haste, Mistress.” There was a real note of reproach in K-9s voice. Snarky electronic mutt that he was, at least he was loyal. “Perhaps you would do well to remember Tyllae is a member of an ancient and wise species despite her demeanor. She trusts the Doctor. Or is it Augment arrogance that makes you believe that you are a better judge of character than she?”
That stung! It was one thing to have to endure the stigma of Khan among Ponies, but to have some jumped-up electronic schnauzer from another universe rub my nose in it was something else entirely!
“Look, Rover!” I glared into those expressionless electronic eyes. “Tyllae is my friend and I trust her. If she says we need the Doctor, ok, we need the Doctor! You’ll excuse me, though, if I have some reservations concerning his methods! Or is it cybernetic arrogance that suggests that I’m not fit to judge the character of a hoighty-toighty Timelord because I’m a mere Augment?”
“Touché, Mistress!” K-9 wagged his tail slowly, raising his head to look me square in the eyes. “Being a product of Timelord programming it would seem that I have inherited an element of Timelord thinking. The Doctor and I are often at odds. I surmise that I serve as a reminder of what he rebelled against in his own people. The destruction of Gallopfrey weighs heavily upon him and he has sworn to never take another life. He is dedicated to the principle that lives cannot be traded even to save other lives. The Doctor always finds another way. It is what he does, but he cannot do it alone. He will always need people like Miss Do, I, and you. He is your Friend… and friends should stand together in trust, should they not?”
I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that his voice synthesizer must be transmitting subliminal signals to convey emotions. The sincerity in his voice was undoubted. He’d make a handy sort of diplomat once he filed the rougher edges of his personality down! In any event I found myself relaxing and feeling more than a little bit ashamed of how I must have represented my people.
“Yeah, they should. Look, K-9, I’m sorry for being so thin-skinned. I …” I trailed off for a moment, at a loss for words. “This is a lot to take in all at once! Look, I don’t have a clear idea of the Big Picture… but I’ll do my best to do my part. For all of us.”
“That’s all that can be asked of all of us when it’s all said and done, isn’t it? Still, I’m glad to hear it, Captain Starry-Eyes. Bravo!”
I jumped and K-9 swiveled his ears toward the new voice. Neither of us, it seemed, heard the Doctor approach but there he stood leaning against the wall just a short distance away with his left legs crossed casually over his right ones. The ghost of a horsey grin from another face shone through the one he wore and he smiled with his eyes.
“Bravo!” He said tenderly.