My beloved was the jocular one. The silly one. The lighthearted one.
I was melancholic, intense, and dour. The closest I could get to humour was sarcasm, often self-deprecating.
What? You're surprised to hear of my hidden depths?
But he could always (almost) cheer me up when I was mired in my own indulgence. When everything seemed hopeless, when I felt I couldn't go any further, his smile, encouraging, pure, almost idiotically optimistic, kept me going.
Even when the daemons came through.
Even when the world was ending around us.
“We'll fix it,” he said.
He was wrong, of course.
Chapter 5
Change of Circumstance
Scattered papers with printed charts and notes and scribbled asides, a couple of pencils, two dinner trays – one with hay, one with reddish chunks of meat Sweetie Belle couldn't identify, both half-finished. On the floor beside the little worktable there was another tray. It had fallen off, spilling its contents: more hay and an upturned wooden bowl on a pile of oats.
The food smelt stale but not musty. It could have been served minutes or days ago. The meat stench was repulsive and gave no hint to its freshness. Sweetie Belle prodded a piece, which squidged slightly, leaving a thin film of grease on her hoof. It didn't look off …
Behind her, Captain Gritstone grunted. “Nothing,” he said.
“No,” agreed Sweetie Belle. She wiped her hooftip on the floor.
Gritstone looked at her and sighed. “Come on.”
She followed him out of the room and into the corridor beyond.
A few metres to their right was the entrance to the outpost; to their left, a ragged hole that let in the sunlight and the stink of the desert. Looking through it you could see a patch of bitumen littered with scraps of metal and punctured by what Sweetie Belle presumed were foundations, and beyond that the great divot. It looked like the back half of the building had been sheared off entirely.
Of the surviving half, it was clear everyone had left in a hurry. Everyone, not everypony – some were carnivores. The papers they had left behind were at first glance unhelpful: papers on drilling techniques filled with obscure technical terms; what looked like the second page of a funding application that talked about the profit potential of native Amaranthian life; a couple of scrawled notes implying passive-aggressive academic feuds; complex technical diagrams; and finally, a black and white, unclear picture of something resembling a snake with insect mouthparts and spikes on its tail.
Sweetie Belle could see, though, that none of that bothered Gritstone as much as the lack of good salvage. They had sent out pegasus scouts to search the area, and they had picked up some heavy-duty drilling machinery, but beyond that, nothing.
In the next room, accessed by a broad doorway, that changed.
Five spheres, each at least six foot across, took the entire floorspace. Speckled in shades of flint and brass with a muted sheen and minute details that almost became iridescence the closer you looked.
Gritstone turned to Sweetie Belle. “Let's hope this isn't another not-really-priceless artefact, eh?” he said, but she could see he was trying to suppress a smile.
“Yeah.” Sweetie Belle touched one; it was warm and dry.
“At least I haven't heard anything about shady payments for big stone spheres.”
Gritstone ordered the crew to set up a net behind the building to haul the spheres back up to the ship. They turned out to be surprisingly light; Sweetie Belle found it easy to roll one out the door, along the corridor and into the net by herself.
Soon after the cargo was loaded, the first of the scouts returned. He had news: “I've found the researchers.”
Gritstone met the pegasus in his office. He invited Sweetie Belle to join them.
“They're in a ship about six miles east of here,” explained the scout. “It's pretty bust up – big fucking hole in the envelope.”
“Did they tell you what happened?” said Gritstone.
“They were attacked.” The scout looked away briefly. “Not pirates. By something they dug up.”
“A snake?” said Sweetie Belle.
The scout shrugged. “They used some fancy name for it. Something like 'worm'.”
“Did they kill it?” asked Gritstone.
“No, sir. They said they got rid of it. Lured it away with a gunship.”
Gritstone sat back and pondered this silently.
“We need to help them,” said Sweetie Belle.
“You have a talent for getting yourself – and us – into scrapes,” said Gritstone. He scratched as his chin. “It's starting look like there's – let's not dance around the word – a monster out there that likes tear things to pieces. If they're telling the truth. Either way, I don't want to run into whatever had a go at the station.”
“Sir,” began Sweetie Belle.
Gritstone held up a hoof to silence her. “I think the smart thing to do would be to leave as quickly as possible. But I also think that leaving these researchers out in the desert is as good as killing them, and that's far too close to piracy for my tastes.”
Sweetie Belle could only smile.
“We'll rescue them and head back to Ilmarinen. That's it. No messing about, alright?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir,” added the scout.
Gritstone nodded acknowledgement at them both, then dismissed them.
They found the researchers' ship on a flattish granite outcrop that poked through the bitumen desert. It was listing, with a tumorous-looking partially inflated envelope looming over its port side.
As they approached, a chatter of flashing limelight sprung up between the ships. Further damage became clear: The brassy hull was wounded in a dozen places – punctured and twisted metal, mechanical guts hanging out through one opening.
Hinny's Revenge dropped, opened the great doors on its belly, and moored itself to the wreck, off to the side so it could extend gangplanks.
Gritstone clearly wasn't wasting time on pleasantries. A team went down to inspect the ship. A few minutes later, they returned, and ragged-maned researchers with drooping heads started filing on board. Drooping shoulders too – some of them were diamond dogs.
As soon as Sweetie Belle saw this, she raced across the decks to get a better view. She searched their colours as they passed. Ochres, shades of red, dark yellows. Orange – on an earth pony. Purple – but it was a coat, not a mane.
She came closer. This was it, right? This was the moment of meeting, of reconciliation, when they could go home together. The stream of researchers trickled. Her hope guttered. “Scootaloo?” she called out, edging around the clustered groups on the deck. “Scootaloo?” Maybe she'd already boarded. Maybe Sweetie Belle had just missed her.
One of the researchers, a gangly, piebald diamond dog, stepped forward and waved at her with a great, meaty paw. “You know Scootaloo?” he said, eyebrows raised.
Sweetie Belle broke into a momentary gallop to get to him. “Yes!” she said. “Oh Celestia, yes. Where is she?”
“Not here.”
She skidded to a halt in front of him and stared. “But … she was, right? What happened?”
“She was. She saved us.” The diamond dog sighed and ran a paw over his head. “Scootaloo signed on with us as a guard. When the aelewyrm attacked us, she took the gunship and goaded it into chasing her and lured it away from her.”
Sweetie Belle sat down heavily Playing the hero. Yeah, that's Scootaloo all right. She struggled to get the words out: “Do you think she's still … still …” She looked across the deck, where the savaged hull of the research vessel sat. “ … alive?”
“I've no doubt. The gunship is fast enough to keep pace with the aelewyrm. But I don't know if she could outrun it, and she wouldn't come back here or go anywhere populated if it were still chasing her.”
“Gunships, aleworms … Oh, Celestia,” Sweetie Belle murmured.
“Aelewyrms,” corrected the diamond dog.
“Right.” She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and steadied herself. “Thanks for telling me. What's your name?”
“Tom.”
“Tom … thanks again.” She took his paw. “Now, we've got to go see the captain. Come on!”
She dragged him down to Gritstone's office. As they arrived she saw one of the officers and a green mare, who judging by the state of her mane was one of the researchers, enter and close the door behind them. She hammered on the wood and, without waiting for a response, let herself in. A glance confirmed Tom has followed her. He had to duck his head to fit into the office, and even so his ears brushed against the ceiling.
“Sweetie Belle?”
“We can't leave yet,” announced Sweetie Belle. “Uh, sir.”
Gritstone stared at her; the officer is stared at her; the mare stared at her; Tom stared at the wall.
“Sweetie Belle, you may not saunter into the captain's office and –”
“Major, what have you been telling this mare?”
“Please, sir –”
“Only the truth.”
“We have to – ”
“Quiet!” Gritstone didn't shout, but he spoke with such ferocity that silence fell immediately. He rubbed his head against his hoof and muttered, “For Celestia's sake, if I wanted to put up with this, I'd have stayed a schoolmaster.” He gave each of them a penetrating look. “Doctor Sherry has just been telling me about the salvage we picked up. Eggs, apparently.”
The green mare, Sherry, started to speak. Raising his voice to continue: “Which we will not be taking with us. So, Sweetie Belle, I'm not in the mood for further complications. Why the interruption?”
“There's somepony still out there,” she replied. “Scootaloo. She saved them from the … aelewyrm?” She glanced at Tom, who nodded. “The aelewyrm. She lured it away. She's going to come back. We have to wait for her.”
The green mare snorted and swished her tail.
“This Scootaloo – she's the pony you're looking for?” asked Gritstone.
“Yes, sir.”
“You're not having much luck, are you?”
Sweetie Belle gave him a weak smile. “No, sir.”
Gritstone turned to Sherry. “Doctor, is that true?”
“Yes. But we shouldn't wait.”
“Are you going to tell us that she is almost certainly dead? That we shouldn't bother waiting for her.”
Sherry pursed her lips. “Not in the slightest, Captain. Scootaloo did us a great service, and I wouldn't insult her like that. Honestly, I don't know whether she's alive or not. I hope she is. However –” She frowned at Tom “– if so, she has a ship and can make her own way back. If she isn't, the aelewyrm maybe returning in her place. Waiting for her is a great risk and has no real benefit.”
Gritstone nodded. “And Major … ?”
“Tom. Just Tom.”
“Tom, then. Anything to add?”
Tom glanced at Sherry and nodded. “The gunship she's in may run out of fuel. Or be damaged. We can't count on her being able to return. And, regardless, it seems unfair to leave after all she's done for us.”
“Noble,” murmured Sherry, “but foolish.”
Tom said nothing.
“Doctor,” said Gritstone. “I'm presuming this aelewyrm is whatever your team dug up.”
“Yes.”
“I've only seen the damage left in its wake. What is it? And what can I expect if it comes back before we leave?”
“We think it's native Amaranthian life. Possibly megafauna related to the builders of Amaranth's technology. Physically: A serpentine body about 210 metres long with eight crystalline eyes, corundum mandibles and thagomizer –”
“Enough,” said Gritstone. “And it didn't occur to you that it might be dangerous?”
“Actually, we spent some time assessing the risk. We even allowed for the possibility it might be alive. Buried monsters often are …”
“But?”
Sherry smiled thinly. “The seismic imagers didn't pick up its wings. We assumed it was ground fauna … and we had an airship.”
“Uh … you had a gunship, didn't you? Is it immune to bullets?” asked Sweetie Belle.
Tom rubbed one paw with the other. “I wouldn't say immune. They annoyed it enough to get it to give chase.”
Gritstone sighed. “I'm sorry, Sweetie Belle …”
“Sir!” she cried. “Please”
“I understand this mare is important to you, but I am not going to risk –”
Sweetie Belle pushed past Sherry and the officer to get to the front of Gritstone's desk. “We can't just leave!”
“Yes we can.” The Captain stood and glowered at her. “As of right now, you've used up whatever goodwill you had left. We are leaving, and when we get to Ilmarinen you are off this ship.”
Sweetie Belle stepped back, looked Gritstone up and down.
“Dismissed,” he said quietly.
“Wait! Wait. I'm off the ship, sure. What if I leave now? Stay on the research ship?
“Not a smart move, Sweetie Belle.”
“I know,” she admitted, looking at the floor. “I know. But I have to.”
“And if she is dead?”
Sweetie Belle didn't look up. There was nothing to be said.
“Very well,” said Gritstone. “Gangplank goes up in fifteen minutes. Decide which ship you want to be on by then.”
“Uh.” Tom has his paw raised. “I'll stay too.” He turned to Sweetie Belle. “If you don't mind, that is.”
Sweetie Belle glanced at Sherry, who was silently glaring at Tom.
“No … I'll be glad to have the company.”
“Good,” said Gritstone. “We're settled.” He turned to the officer: “Get those eggs off my ship.” Then to Sweetie Belle: “As I said, fifteen minutes.”
There was nothing onboard Hinny's Revenge Sweetie Belle wanted to take. She grabbed some rations from the mess, then, searching for somepony to say goodbye to, ran into Muttershanks by the railings.
She explained what she was doing and finished with, “say goodbye to Petallion and Whicker for me, will you?”
Muttershanks grimaced. “You are going to get yourself killed with this sort of behaviour.”
“Maybe,” said Sweetie Belle.
“Take care. I'll tell them.”
Sweetie Belle gave Mutterhshanks a quick hug, didn't get one in return, then cantered off.
At the gangplank, she turned back briefly to look at the austere, ugly, inviting Hinny's Revenge, then forward to the savaged hulk where she would spend however long it took Scootaloo to return.
She took a deep breath and trotted forward.
Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo stood on the hastily-assembled wooden platform of Omphalos' third train station.
Behind them, from a train on the adjacent tracks, a crane unloaded several tonnes of Everfree timber bound for Amaranth. Ahead of them, a dozen airships loitered around the outskirts of the city, drawn by the promise of novelty and adventure and profit. Like flies on shit, Sweetie Belle thought.
“Come on,” said Scootaloo. “Let's get a tram to the other side.” She trotted ahead without waiting for a response.
“Yeah, okay,” said Sweetie Belle, following. Just let her get it out of her system. Wait till it's lost its lustre. Then tell her.
They trotted past them ramshackle frontier buildings, past the crowds of griffons and ponies, past the great cranes and cableways to the core of the city, the place where universes kissed.
The tram station, one of seven, lay at the edge of an interior ring of structures a couple hundred metres across. Inside the ring there were no more buildings, and the ground became a downwards slope, like a funnel, gradually increasing in steepness until it dipped below view.
Riding the tram down the slope, Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo didn't feel like they were going downhill. Gravity remained firmly pointed towards the floor, and behind them the world they'd left seemed to tilt sickeningly.
At the halfway point, Sweetie Belle stuck her head out the tram's window and looked around. The ground was almost a right angle from their starting point now. Looking back she could she they sky of the world they'd left, clouds scattered vertically; looking forward she could see the sky of Amaranth, with a ragged white tear in reality bisecting it. Craning her neck up, she saw a tram pass on the far side of the funnel's neck – upside down from her perspective.
She pulled her head back inside and grinned. Despite her reservations, she had to admit she found the funnel fascinating.
Scootaloo didn't: She was staring at the tram's floor looking slightly nauseated. Seeing her like that, Sweetie Belle felt a twinge of joy; perhaps it was the first step to disliking Amaranth. She reached out and put a reassuring hoof over Scootaloo's.
A jolt of some indefinable feeling. Half like the floor dropping from under you, half a momentary chill. Sweetie Belle felt a wave of thaumic sparks coruscating down her horn; beside her, Scootaloo shuddered.
That was the transition point – the barrier at the neck of the funnel past which neither the Princesses nor Discord could cross. Now they were formally in Amaranth.
She heard a faint muttering.
“Did you say something?”
Scootaloo shook her head sharply, still looking down.
Sweetie Belle rubbed her hoof. “Are you okay?”
“I'm fine. I'll be fine.”
Muttering again, in just one ear. Sweetie Belle turned her ear back and forth, searching for the origin.
“Daemons,” said Scootaloo weakly. “Remember?”
“Oh yeah.”
The transition point kept the Princesses out of Amaranth, but it also kept the daemons in. Almost everypony Sweetie Belle had heard opine on the issue thought the trade-off was worth it.
The ground continued to curve below them as the tram climbed out of the hole, until at last they had traversed a full 180 degrees and they were in Amaranth proper.
Sweetie Belle's first daemon was still muttering in her ear when the tram drew into the terminus, with a chime to announce its arrival. She peered out the window, brimming with fascination. At first glance, the far side of Omphalos didn't look that different from the one they'd left: Quickly assembled architecture and industry. A mix of Equestrian and Aquileonan design and citizens, with a smattering of other species mixed in. But an oddity soon became apparent – a colour she'd not seen before lurking in every shadow that looked a bit, but only a little bit, like orange. “Come on,” she told Scootaloo. “We're here.”
They left the tram and walked through the city. It was warmer on this side, like a midday summer in Appleoosa, and a thick soup of odours hung in the air, sweat and smoke and oil and other chemical smells. Airships, greater in size and number, sat ponderous in the sky or swam above them with a grumble and whirr of engines.
They reached the outskirts of the city. An flimsy iron barrier, beyond which the rock ground dropped away. Hundreds of feel below the true desert of Amaranth began: dunes stretching off into the horizon, littered with uncountable metal skeletons and shadowed by uncountable airships.
Scootaloo was still looking a little peaky from the passage through the funnel. Without saying anything she sat down and stared out across the desert. Her expression was shot through with melancholy and, if not disappointment, something very close to it. Watching her, Sweetie Belle felt a surge of longing.
A twitch of orange ear. “This daemon hasn't let up since we got off the tram.”
“Same here,” said Sweetie Belle, sitting beside her. “How do you feel?”
Scootaloo made little noise in her throat. “I dunno,” she said at last. “It's awesome … but I guess I was expecting something a little more …” Her brow creased. “Cooler. Heroic. Cleaner?” She shook her head and swore softly.
Sweetie Belle took a moment to summon her courage, then put her hoof and Scootaloo's shoulder and drew her closer. Scootaloo didn't resist, and ended up with her head resting on Sweetie Belle's shoulder.
“Y'know romance?” said Scootaloo.
Sweetie Belle tensed. “Yeah?”
“I mean, the word. That can also mean, like … when you think something is really perfect, even though it isn't?”
“Um … More or less.”
“I got carried away by the romance.”
“Oh.” Sweetie Belle looked down, then out towards the horizon. It was several seconds before she spoke again: “Yeah, you did.”
“Damn.”
“While I was in Fillydelphia, I got talking to a pony who does adventure tours. Ziplining in jungles and that sort of thing. He's looking for more tour operators. I know it's not quite as much a frontier as Amaranth, but if you were doing that, we'd get to see each other more … and I wouldn't have to worry about my best friend getting chased by airship pirates.”
“Go on …”
Sweetie Belle sat on the slanted deck of the wreck watching Hinny's Revenge.
When the gangplanks were retracted, the tethers released, a whining undertone added itself to the engine's roar. Compressed air being released. The ship rose. The hull at first slid and soon raced upwards, and then was gone, and she was looking upward at the its underside, the doors to the crane, the medley of salvaged additions.
It turned ponderously, then started to move away.
A few metres down the deck the five aelewyrm eggs sat in a shallow hole in the deck. She didn't know what to do with them. In favour of letting them drop onto the desert below and smash, they might hatch. In favour of leaving them be, they might hatch. In the end she'd decided to leave them. Maybe the young would be friendlier than the adult.
She realised with a suppressed shiver that it was back again. That old companion. The feeling of being a tiny filly on the verge of dissolving in immensity like salt in water.
Amaranth again came into searing clarity: The metallic deck grating pressing into her legs and belly, the fake-orange Scarlight hiding in the lengthening shadows, the acrid smell of the bitumen below, the rubbery whispers of daemons, the sense of overwhelming history ground into near shapelessness by the inexplicably inconsistent passage of vast tracts time.
Only crazy ponies would come here.
That includes you, Sweetie Belle, doesn't it?
And Scootaloo?
But she had a reason …
She stood and sought to distract herself from even less welcome thoughts. Behind her an open door led to steps rendered treacherously steep by ship's angle. Sour and anaemic interior lighting dribbled from within and revealed an empty corridor below.
“Tom?”
Padding steps, then a voice: “Yes?”
“Just checking you're alive. Why're you still down there?”
“It seemed like a good opportunity to catch up on my reading,” answered Tom.
“Oh, right.” She briefly considered leaving him to his reading. “The sun's out and … the birds aren't singing, but it's still a lovely day. You shouldn't spend it cooped up inside.”
Silence. Then more padding, and Tom appeared at the bottom of the stairs holding a leatherbound book. He looked her in the eye, and started climbing.
“I'm starting to miss days that aren't sunny,” he said.
Sweetie Belle snorted. “If I get back to Equestria and never see the sun again, if the pegasi decide to keep a raincloud over my head for the rest of my life, I would be happy.” She walked with Tom back to her vantage point over the desert. Hinny's Revenge was smaller now, its engines barely audible.
“Hm. I'm sure Scootaloo would never let that happen.”
She tried not to show the pain on her face and nodded. After a few seconds without a reply, she ventured a different tack. “Major? You're military?”
He shook his head. “I'm not, thank Sirius. It would be really awkward if I were.” He shrugged. “It's just a name. My mother had some … odd ideas about life. I prefer to go by 'Tom'.”
“Oh, right …” She traced her hooftip across the deck grating, changing directions randomly at each corner. It was becoming increasingly clear she had nothing but selfish reasons drag him away from his reading. “What's the book?”
“An old saga. Mostly just dogs from a thousand years ago running each other through with swords and burning each others homes down.” He tapped the leather face. “We had quite a civilisation once, you know. I brought it to remind me of my roots back home. It's easy to lose yourself in a place like this.”
“Can I see?”
Tom opened it about halfway through to reveal two blank, cream-coloured pages. “You can smell.”
Sweetie Belle just looked at him.
“Olfactory language. The paper's impregnated with chemicals in different combinations.” He offered to book.
She took it and tentatively sniffed the top of the lefthand page. The bitumen smell in the air nearly overpowered the page, but she could just pick out hints of lavender, almond, petrichor, overripe pear, and several subtler scents she couldn't put a name to.
“Did … did you show this to Scootaloo?” she asked as she handed it back.
“Yeah.”
“What did she say?
“She said, and I quote, 'Aromatic? I can barely read Equestrian.'”
“Was … was there anything between –”
“Hold that thought,” said Tom. “Your ship is signalling us.”
Sweetie Belle looked up. Hinny's Revenge, a grey patchwork bug hovering near the horizon, was emitting a series of flashes.
“That's an urgent signal,” said Tom. “Come on.”
“Of course it is,” muttered Sweetie Belle. She followed Tom at a cantering pace to the ship's light signal and watched, feeling useless and frustrated, while he lit it and set up the gates.
Everything set up, Tom sent a response.
“What're they saying?” It struck her that here was another language from which her ignorance excluded her, even after being in Amaranth for months. Scootaloo probably knew how to read light signals, she thought ruefully.
“Urgent,” translated Tom. “Yes, we got that bit. Ships approaching. Two. Aquileonan design. Using stealth. Likely pirates. Trajectory … They're coming from the research station.”
Sweetie Belle stopped worrying about language. “Then … they were tailing us.”
“Possibly,” said Tom.
“No,” said Sweetie Belle. “They are. There was a jennet in Ilmarinen. She said pirates were chasing Scootaloo. Griffons.” She closed her eyes and shuddered. “And they've followed me to get to her.
Tom said nothing and started sending a message back to Hinny's Revenge.
Sweetie Belle kneaded the ground with her hooves while more messages went back and forth. A sense of urgency clashed with the time it took to communicate.
“Okay,” said Tom at last. “Because the pirates are coming from the research station, your captain has a clear route to Ilmarinen. He thinks he can get there, or at least within range of the Ilmarinen navy, before they catch up to him. Also said he knew he'd need the ansible, and thanks for chipping in.”
Sweetie Belle sighed. “And what about us?”
“We wait here and hope they don't find us.”
“Is that it?”
“I suppose we could signal the pirates and give away our location. That way we wouldn't have to worry about whether or not they knew we were here.”
“Let's wait.”
“Good plan.”
Blueberry led her bodyguards past a team of buzzing chevaloids laden with boxes through the main chamber of Ilmarinen Docking Tower Five. The sound of clanking metal and whining cables echoed off the walls, battering her eardrums and almost drowning out a daemon's soliloquy about magnificence, and the rough floor was doing her hooficure no favours, she was sure.
They had found the missing repository almost immediately, put up for sale by a griffon salvor. And therein lay the problem: It was inactive.
Which meant that someone had used it. And she didn't like that thought at all. But there were still avenues to investigate, so investigate she would.
She glanced out one of the tower's windows at their destination. On the elegant blue and gold envelope, curlicued letters spelled out the ship's name: Dulcet.
“Hello there!” she announced to the griffon standing guard at the Dulcet's portal when they were a few metres away. “The name's Blueberry Pancake. I'm here on behalf of S to look at your merchandise. You were told to expect us, I hope?”
The griffon's eyes widened. “Oh, um, yes.”
Blueberry smiled widely and put a hoof on his shoulder. “Would you tell your captain that we've arrived?”
The captain, a large and lithe female griffon by the name of Lucille with painted talons, met them in the hold where the inactive repository sat amongst other carefully-tended pieces of junk.
“Captain Lucille, is it? I'm Blueberry Pancake, the buyer. I love your ship, by the way. Very nice paintjob. Makes a change from the usual rust-buckets I see around Ilmarinen.”
“Hm … thank you,” said Lucille after a moment, looking faintly bemused. “Would you like to inspect the statue?”
“If you don't mind,” said Blueberry. “Just have to make sure it isn't a forgery.”
She walked with Lucille over to the repository and started into its eyes as if there were some information to be gleaned. Nothing, though. Just a few diminishing thaumic ripples. The repository was completely inactive.
“While ten thousand bits is a price that encourages me to ask no questions …” said Lucille behind her.
“You can't help being curious?” She turned to offer the captain a friendly grin. “Salvor's instinct, right?”
Lucille nodded. “Got it in one.”
“Beautiful and smart. I like that,” said Blueberry. She looked at Sorghum and Cannons. “An inquisitive mind is a sign of intelligence, don't you think?”
“Yes, ma'am,” said Sorghum; Cannons nodded silently.
Blueberry stepped forward to whisper in Lucille's ear: “Don't mind these two. They're as inquisitive as a damp flannel.” Then, retreating again, continued out loud, “So ask away.”
Lucille looked from Blueberry to the bodyguards and back again. “Everything I've heard until now stressed that S only wanted luminescent statues. And you, Blueberry Pancake. You're certainly not what I was expecting.”
“You wouldn't believe how often I get that.” Blueberry grinned at Lucille. “But it's just a matter of public relations. I mean, who wants to do a deal with a bunch of raggedy aquileonan privateers, right? I certainly wouldn't. As for luminescent statues … I'm afraid all I can say it it's a special case.” She paused for a moment. “Oh! That reminds me, I need to know where you found this statue.”
“I didn't, as it happens. I bought it from a friend.”
“Even though you thought it was worthless?”
Lucille shrugged with her wings. “Like I said, a friend.”
“How noble …” said Blueberry, adding a twinge of huskiness to her voice. “Did he tell you where he found it?”
“Salt flats south of here.”
“Anything more specific?”
Lucille shook her head.
Blueberry frowned and tried to look like she was thinking. “Could you tell us where to find this friend of yours? I don't want to alarm you, but it could be important for his safety. You know how ancient magical artefacts can be …”
Lucille looked at her silently with briefly narrowed eyes. “I can't. He's gone off on another 'let's get myself in mortal danger' trip. But I'll send him an ansible message and tell him you're looking.”
“Would you? That'd really help,” said Blueberry. “Thank you so much, Lucille.”
She finished up the meeting as soon as possible: She agreed to buy the useless repository, told Lucille her eyes were beautiful, paid ten thousand bits, and retreated to her own ship to await delivery.
“She's lying to protect them,” opined Cannons.
“Of course she is,” said Blueberry, only half paying attention. She stretched out on her chaise longue, soaking in the sensation of soft velvet against her back, then looked again at the roster she'd charmed out of a clerk.
“We should interrogate her.”
“Because kidnapping a griffon from the most heavily policed port outside of Omphalos will really help, right?” Salvor ships, crewed by ponies, that arrived and left again within the past week. There were only three candidates: Hinny's Revenge, The Shrike, and The Crucible.
Cannons kneaded at the floor. “And what about the pony who was able to use the repository?”
Blueberry looked up from the roster and grinned at him. “Don't worry so much.” She closed her eyes and stretched. “Be a sweetheart and put a record on, will you? Something light, if you don't mind. Yeah … the Sweetie Belle album will do. Anyway, it's simple. The white unicorn downloaded the repository. That means she has the location of the hidden city buried somewhere in her brain. All we have to do is find her and dig it out.”
After an hour of waiting in the ship's innards, during which anxiety gave way to boredom, a subsonic thrum crawled through the bulkheads. Soon after, Sweetie Belle heard a clang, and the ship's hull rattled in response.
Tom lifted his nose from the book and grimaced. “Oh, crumbs.”
“Yeah,” said Sweetie Belle. There didn't seem to be much else to say.
They waited in silence, listening. From the deck came the sound of steps and voices. Faint at first, not so faint.
And two griffons appeared at the door, guns under their wings.
“Well,” said one, turning to Sweetie Belle. “Look who it is.”
They led Sweetie Belle and Tom up to the deck. A lone ship held onto the wreck with grapples; a silver-grey cigar, all sleek edges and smooth curves, with a gondola integrated into its hull and no exposed decks. Guns poked out from a dozen places to mar the streamlining.
No gangplank: Pairs of griffons lifted the two of them into an open portal on the gondola.
Makes sense if all the crew have wings, thought Sweetie Belle, and idly wondered why she wasn't freaking out more. She supposed she'd already used up all her freakout points on previous, lesser, problems; now there was nothing to do but wait and see what would happen.
As she reached the ship, she caught sight of the aelewyrm eggs being carried aboard.
The griffons who led Tom and her at gunpoint down the corridors kept muttering too each other. They were taken into a dingy office where yet more armed griffons waited. One in the centre, with a missing digit on his right claw and what would have been magnificent cream plumage were it not riven by bald scars, stepped forward, pointed at her with his stump, and spoke in a voice like the roiling tar below them.
“This her?”
“Yeah. She came up to our ship asking after Scootaloo,” answered one of the guards.
“Scootaloo herself?”
“No sign.”
“She wouldn't be hiding. And the diamond dog?”
“Dunno.”
Okay, so these were the pirates tracking Scootaloo. Now what? If she told them Scootaloo had left in a gunship to defeat a giant flying snake, would they follow? Would she be sending Scootaloo a second enemy?
If she didn't …
Torture. Terror settled in her stomach like an ice-cold rock, and she realised she still had a reserve of freakout points to go.
The lead griffon stepped forward, put his mutilated claw under he chin and lifted her gaze to his. Sweetie Belle tried to recoil, until a gun jabbed into her flank.
“What's your story, huh?” said the griffon. His beak, a carnivore break, made for digging into flesh.
Sweetie Belle said nothing.
“Thought so. It doesn't matter.” He released her and looked at the guards. “We're not going after Scootaloo.”
“We're not?”
“No.” He gestured at the griffon by his side. “Just before we arrived, Gregor here received an ansible transmission. Turns out one of our employers is looking for a white unicorn mare who passed through Ilmarinen just a few days ago. She's worth more than ten times everything Scootaloo has lost us.
“Now, Gregor, reply to their message. Tell them we have the pony they're looking for.”