Several months later…
Lonely Day extended a hoof, and Dr. Clark leaned down to shake it. The shackles made it difficult to lift the hoof to any meaningful angle, but she did her best. Human fingers felt warm and strange, like little squishy spiders. They had no analogue in her life anymore, even if she had possessed some of her own over a year ago. Before everything had fallen apart, and the dream of human society ended. He towered over her, a sturdy man with slowly graying hair. He wore a uniform, like every other human she had seen in Raven. His was less a technician’s jumpsuit and closer to something a naval officer might wear, big sleeves and medals. She sometimes wondered what those medals were. So far as she knew, Dr. Clark hadn’t ever served in any military.
“I was told you had something to show me, Doctor.” She gestured vaguely over her shoulder, at the automated carts filled with pre-event electronics, still in their boxes. “The change in shipment requests. Don’t get me wrong, the scouting teams love it. Flying around the country in the Hummingbird, raiding electronics stores. They told me it was like a shopping spree. Not sure why it would be more important than food, though.”
“Of course.” He gestured to the massive elevator, the one that formed the center of Raven City’s core. “Come with me.”
She followed him inside with clanking footsteps, and barely made it before the doors closed on her tail. It was amazing how much she relied on the magic of her race, without even knowing it. When it was stolen from her, even willingly, she felt as helpless as a filly. She supposed that was probably because she almost was. This elevator wasn’t for cargo; it was only big enough for passengers, and as such had been built out of a large curved piece of glass, which gave her a panoramic view of Raven City as it began to descend. The upper levels were built to the height of Pre-Event engineering, mostly surfaces of polished stainless steel or concrete.
Whatever Raven Rock had looked like before humanity had been warned of the approach of thaumic radiation and the Collapse that would follow, she doubted any of that original structure had survived. It had been entirely stripped and expanded, filling in every gap that the perfectly spherical shield at the center could protect. Day knew they had been able to expand as a result of their alliance with the ponies outside; with ponies doing most of the scavenging instead of humans. Less energy spent on shields outside meant a larger and larger area could be protected inside.
As the elevator descended, she watched emitters flick on automatically, expanding protection to these areas while simultaneously scouring the area of any latent magic that had radiated inside. Instead of smooth metal, the floors here were bare rock, and only robots moved. As they passed, automatic lights came to life, then faded again, creating a strange flashing strobe all around the elevator. “I have discussed our situation before.”
She nodded.
“As we’ve discussed, it is completely untenable. Even with half your town and a dozen others running salvage operations for us. Even with thousands of tons of pre-Collapse hardware piling up in warehouses upstairs. Even with the food you provide us.”
“I know. Your MHS is a miracle, but it still takes raw materials. You can’t recycle the same components forever. Things break down.”
“Things break down,” Clark agreed, as the elevator came to an abrupt stop. Like everything in Raven City, the elevator was built using the MHS, or Modular Hardware System. Its few thousand separate components were like structural legos, combining into guns as easily as they made water purifies or computers. She understood a number of pre-Collapse corporations had been very close to releasing the first models, only a year or so after the date of the collapse. A pity they never would. “When you live in conditions like ours, hardware failure and death are the same thing.”
He stepped out through the doorway. Rows of lights came on with regular clicks, illuminating a vast space all around the elevator. It was largely bare rock, though a walkway had been placed atop it leading out, and he walked along it. Alex set off after him, even though the rough grip of the metal stung the more sensitive parts of her hoof with every step. Pity she hadn’t worn horseshoes. “When I was given this assignment, I was given a single directive above all others. You can guess what it was. I was chosen for my vision, Lonely Day. I was instructed that the period just following the Collapse would be the most critical for human survival. We have opportunities, all fading with each day.”
“More than that spell we might figure out one day? The one that makes it so humans can live outside the shields?”
He stopped walking, frowning suddenly. “How much progress have your ‘unicorns’ made in a year?”
She didn’t blush, but her ears flattened on her head. “Not much.” Not any, but she wasn’t about to say that. It wasn’t as though she had expected to make any headway, though! Equestria itself, a country practically operated by magic, had tried that first and failed! It wasn’t as though they were going to do better with just a few ponies, in less time.
“Precisely.” The lights behind them clicked off, though the path ahead remained clear. She could hear the quiet whirring of electronics, metal grinding and sparking, pneumatics, in the near distance. The cavern had changed too, from regular tool-marks to a ceiling getting higher and higher. Natural formations glinted in the distance, distant stalactites and pools of crystal water. “Humanity cannot depend on your ponies for its long-term survival. We are still grateful for your help, and we will continue to work with you as long as possible.”
“But our time is limited. The key, more than resources, is knowledge. An industrial nation depends on the work of many specialists, each devoting their entire life to a single, specific discipline. Globalism meant that few nations actually had the resources to be truly self-sufficient. We must not just function with a population smaller than a medieval village, we must maintain sophisticated technology in the face of death if even some small part of it collapses.”
He slowed a little, as they neared the source of the noise. A large object, perhaps the size of a greyhound bus, sat on rolling support struts on the stone. She wasn’t close enough to get a good look through the dark. “So Raven lives on borrowed time, unless we do something dramatic.” He stopped, gesturing at the large object. “Tell me, Lonely Day: have you heard of a Von Neumann probe?”
The little earth pony shook her head, taking a few clanking steps past him for a better look. White, sterile surfaces, like those she had seen on television, the surfaces of martian landers and the interiors of space shuttles. Most of what she saw was raw material, tiny pieces made from individual MHS components.
“This is human salvation. When it’s finished, this probe will be launched into the asteroid belt. It will travel for a year, perhaps, before it selects a mineral-rich asteroid. It will harvest minerals, and over the course of another year or two, it will assemble an identical copy of itself. Both probes begin replicating, and after another year there are four. Eventually there are eight, sixteen, thirty two… you get the idea.” He walked forward, to the edge of a round walkway. As he crossed some invisible barrier, the spinning robotic arms at work on the probe hummed down to silence.
“Something like this would have been impossible, even during the year of the Collapse. Not anymore.” He reached out, to where the blue and white logo of Earth itself had been painted. “This design uses only sixteen elements, in less than a hundred simple compounds. All can be found in abundance in the solar system.”
He removed his hand, turning back to face her. “Understand, it will be many years before the probes have reached numbers useful to us. I will not be alive. My children and grandchildren will be long gone. Eventually though, they’ll reach critical mass. They need not remain restricted to the pattern we first wrote for them; our transmitters can send new innovations, and their swarm intelligence will grow. Eventually, they will assemble our second home. Raven City will become a station of vast size, and our population won’t be restricted by our feeble shields. Freed from the gravity-well of a planet, their range will be greater by an order of magnitude at least.”
She could see his vision. Hell, Alex could almost see the station already. A thriving population of her own true species, living again in safety. They would leave the ponies of Earth behind. “How long?” She was almost speechless at the prospect. “How long would it take?”
He frowned. “It’s hard to be certain. If we’re right, the probes could do their work without our interference. They might be ready to begin construction of a sizable station in as little as five hundred years, sooner if this first one gets really lucky. But we’re missing certain… critical technologies. Nuclear fusion will be essential, and we aren’t quite there. Many more technologies, which mankind had nearly grasped before the Collapse. That will be the task of my people, in the hundreds of years my probes need to work.”
He turned to face her, and she could practically smell the intensity radiating from him. “Alex, we need your ponies to make this happen. Raven does not have the resources to get this probe into orbit. We have the talent; the Initiative knew space was our only hope, even if they didn’t have an answer to where we would get the manpower.”
“We could never assemble everything it would take to get my probe into orbit, but we don’t have to.” He smiled. “Do you remember NASA, the way they stopped building spacecraft because the Americans wouldn’t pay for them?” At her nod, he continued. “They never did. Our delivery system is waiting, sealed in warehouses and waiting for us to assemble it.”
“It’s all rotting away. Even with all our preparations, there is much work to be done. Repairs to our facilities, running fuel refineries, transporting and assembling everything. If we don’t act now, then in a few years in will be too late.” He took a deep breath. “The change in our import requests was only the beginning. We need every available pony in your colony. We need every available pony in every colony. We’ll fill the sky with Hummingbirds, expend every resource to get that probe into orbit before next winter. I believe your ponies are capable of doing much of the work. A partnership with the other colonies could bring even more manpower. Together, the organized population of this continent could see it done.”
“So I ask, Lonely Day, do you love humanity enough to sacrifice for us one more time?”
Her mother’s face flashed before her eyes. Her sister. Orphans and finger-painting and traffic. Even her brother. “We do. However…” She took a deep breath. “This won’t be easy, Doctor Clark. Taking so many ponies from the field would mean living off cans and grass again. Many ponies wouldn’t be happy about that. If we do this, we’re going to need compensation. Most ponies won’t put their lives on hold for humanity.” She lowered her voice. “Lots of ponies think you abandoned them. They resent the HPI, and everything you stand for. They think you should’ve saved everypony or none of us.”
“You?”
She shook her head. “Not anymore.” She looked up, taking in the probe for the first time. Little spindly legs, with sharp grippers, like a bacteriophage blown up to gigantic size. Many surfaces were covered in solar film, and ports for smaller probes opened up at numerous points along its body. “But I know my ponies. They’ll want you to pay for their help.”
He nodded. “We expected as much. Once the probe is complete, I could focus manufacturing on whatever you required from us during the duration of the project.”
“I know. More than that, though.” She turned away from the probe, looking way up at his face. “I would want a policy created, hardcoded into the drones. All of them get it, every copy.” She gestured vaguely at the probe. “We hope you succeed. They build your station or whatever, and get you up to it somehow. When that happens, and every human is off Earth, those drones become ours, along with everything they built. Whatever drydock they used, all their little waystations and mines out in orbit. All belong to the ponies of Earth. Control transfers to me, or my chosen successor. You can inject a nuclear tracker in me or something.”
“Just you?” He raised his eyebrows. “You think one man ought to control all that?”
She shook her head. “I think a tool like that could facilitate genocide and war, and that even a really good group of ponies might forget what they were supposed to be doing after a few years. Maybe they think they’re better than everypony else, and they use your probes to make sure we don’t forget it.”
He looked concerned, and she thought his eyebrows might lift right off his face. “But you’re not like that. You’re different.”
“No.” She sighed. “I’m not a person, Dr. Clark. I am Archive. My desires only exist to reflect humanity’s desires. If I use this tool to enslave and conquer, it is only because all of humanity has become slavers and conquerors.”
“And when you die?”
She looked away from him when she answered. “I won’t.” She said it with such certainty, such absolute confidence, that Dr. Clark nearly staggered. Still, he knew enough to know she wasn’t just claiming that because she wanted to. He had to have read the reports.
Clark’s expression became unreadable. “We might remain in the solar system for… many years. Thousands, more. We can’t even speculate about the enabling technologies for interstellar travel. We might never be able to leave. Frankly, there might not be a point unless we somehow managed to find somewhere without thaumic radiation. Somewhere we can walk under the sky, somewhere our children can feel the wind. Maybe humanity will be adrift in a flotilla for eternity.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “But humanity is down here too, doctor. Me, the others… our children. We’re humanity too. Even if we don’t look it anymore. Our governments, our society, they all failed us. They were willing to let us all die; only the Equestrians prevented that. Yes, I realize you had no choice, and I don’t blame you.”
“The point is, you owe us more than just a few turbines and replacement transponders for helping you. You owe us our society back. Maybe when you’re gone, there will be enough of us to use those drones to put ourselves back together again, even if we still have hooves. The tiny slice of humanity you saved can build new probes. You can go wherever and mine whatever. Just leave us the ones you used to get there. That way, in time, we both win.”
The older man ran a hand through his graying hair, stepping back so the robotic assembly machines could go back to work. “I see you are as far-seeing as I.” Pause. “Do you think this will satisfy your ponies? As preoccupied with survival as they are, do you think they will see the significance of an gift they won’t live to receive, nor will their children and grandchildren? It may take so long to see the fruit of this exchange that nobody outside this bunker remember it when that moment comes.”
She smiled. “Do you think your successors will honor your promise if you make it with me now?”
He nodded dismissively. “Absolutely. Humanity is good for its word. Can you be sure your species will know what to do with the probes when they get them? A network that size, hundreds of thousands or even millions of probes, could easily be used to destroy a society.”
Lonely Day looked down at the rough floor, at her hooves and the magical shackles that took away her strength. Then she opened her mouth, and told Dr. Clark something she hadn’t even told her best friend, though her mate had discovered on his own. Clark listened, nodded. They shook hands. Well, she shook his.
Seven months later, Alex sat beside her friends to watch the last launch of the human space program, in a field so full of ponies that she could not see the grass through the colorful bodies. Not a single human was in attendance, though she knew they watched through the cameras of drones.
The earth shook, and the fire of chemical rockets burned one last time. One final rocket vanished into the morning sky, disappearing beyond the limits of sight. Once in orbit, the slow acceleration of its ion thruster sent a single probe off on its journey to the asteroid belt. With it went the hopes of all humanity, and perhaps the future of ponies as well.
The next day, the Posthuman General Cooperation Treaty was signed by eighteen separate city-states and one human bunker.
Life was good.
At first.