//------------------------------//
// 9. Taking a Unicorn 
// Story: Exploring Equestria 
// by A_guy_from_Earth 
//------------------------------//


“I hate it,” growled Karin.
“Why so?” wondered Bluve.
“It’s our third taking, and we again took our friend!”
“Well, yes, but, you know, she is good at magical telekinesis,” doctor said, looking at white mare with violet mane and tail who lay at the bottom of particle scanner chamber.
“And we must find out how do they do it,” said Max.

Karin sighed.

“I also don’t like it, but what can we do?” said Oma. “It’s our job, it’s our research program.”
“Right,” Kor gave a slow nod.
“Indeed,” said Affi. “When you’ll finish the scanning?”
“In a half of supramoment,” answered Max.
“Good.”
“Um, I don’t want to offend you, Affi, but where is Edez? Usually he bosses the show,” wondered Bluve.
“And where are Sheim and Zet’rar?” added Karin.
“Oh, Edez decided not to pass to unicorns until he figures out all matters with pegasi: he studies how they can walk on clouds. And Zet and Sheim…”
“Pardon me…” Max intervened. “After that “experiment” in Appleloosa Zet’rar got fascinated with these energy crystals and decided to learn how do they work. So he bought an one and now studies it. He also involved Sheim because only he in our team has sufficient mineralogy and inorganic chemistry knowledge.”
“Oh, I see.”

They stopped to talk and looked at the holographic projections of the main laboratory terminal. There were dozens of screens with rapidly changing data – indicators of vital activity, biophysical parameters, information about chemical composition, graphs of mental activity and other. And between them there was the main projection: three-dimensional hologram of scanned mare. Manipulators continued their intricate dance, their program aimed to fix every molecule of the body of the taken, every particle, every mind pattern. All this should form complete portrait of the species, the total scheme.

Team One waited. The process continued, scanners hummed and twisted, but eventually drafting of the scanogram was finished. Manipulators stopped to meander, straightened and one by one disappeared in their hatches. The main projection flashed and in a moment holographic control panel appeared under it.

“So, I think we can pass to the analyzing, right?” said Affi.

Her colleagues gave a nod.

“Then let’s start,” she continued. “Max, Bluve, is there any general differences in their biological structure?”
“I don’t see any,” said Max.
“Neither in biophysical parameters, nor in biochemical,” added Bluve, looking at the minor screens. “The same picture that we had seen during the investigation of earth ponies’ and pegasi’s physiology and genetics.”
“Well, nothing surprising, I guess,” uttered Affi.
“Honestly, there is one moment,” noted Max after some more reading.
“What is it?”
“This similarity itself. Earth ponies, pegasi, unicorns, although they have quite significant external physiological differences, their genomes are almost the same. According to this information, they have only… 267 genes that differ. And there are 31283 genes in their genome! 267 differing genes is a tiny fraction! Real biological difference between all three kinds of ponies is minimal. So, I think, we were wrong at first time when we considered them as three different species. Earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi are likely to be subspecies.”
“It’s really interesting, but there are some difficulties with this,” uttered Affi. “You know, I have a biological education too – not so detailed as your, but still I know some matters. Yes, genetic differences are small, but external differences are great, and you can’t just write them off. Their taxonomy will become a sore point. We should discuss it with other Teams and master biologists from the Institute.”
“Agree,” said Bluve.

Max looked at his colleague, then at his curator and also consented.

“And one more thing,” he said. “There is something that bothers me… She has too much mineral and foreign organic substances in her hair.”
“Oh, this… Such things happen because of regular use of primitive cosmetics,” said Oma.
“What? How do you know that?”
“Well, I used primitive cosmetics, based on substances, before and I use it now. I like its effect, you know. And, by the way, every girl-biologist can prove this fact.”

Bluve nodded in confirmation.

“Okay…”
“And, I must say, she uses way too many cosmetics,” sighed Kor. “Even after short conversation with her I need at least seven supramoments to recover my sense of smell.”
“Really?” surprised others.
“Oh yeah. I don’t know what perfume she uses, but I’m sure that it’ll be perfect base for creation of weapon of mass destruction of verekans.”
“Hm, then it would be interesting to find out!” grinned Max.
“Thanks, you are true friend,” Kor looked at him.
“Always welcome.”
“Fine, we dealt with all minor problems. Now let’s find how do they control the energy mix,” stated Affi.
“Give us a moment,” said Bluve and together with Max proceeded to searching.

Ten stressful minutes passed, but biologists didn’t come up with the answer. 

“You have problems?” wondered Kor.
“No,” answered Bluve. “It’s just because of processing. It took much longer than we expe… Yes! Here they are!”
“You got the data?” asked Karin.
“Yes!”
“Let’s take a look then,” grinned Affi.

Doctors gave a nod and opened the files obtained.

“So?”
“Well, honestly, we expected something like that,” said Bluve. “Unicorns are able to controlling the energy mix because their nerves and ETS are tightly intertwined and because their battery organs, or magic hearts as they call them themselves, are more powerful.”
“Magic hearts?” surprised Oma.
“Yeah.”
“So they knew how they can do their magic?”
“Uh-huh, but they know only general scheme of how’s the process going. Their researches and technologies aren’t advanced enough to provide really detailed information we need.”
“Where did you learn all this?” asked Karin.
“Just visited local hospital once in our free time,” answered Max.
“This is the reason?” surprised Kor. “Then what about their horns?”
“Well, horns, in fact, are only the emitters,” continued Max, looking at the screens. “Just keratin outgrowths densely filled with ETS channels. It’s absolutely utilitarian organ. But it’s the only way out for unicorn’s own energy, so without it they won’t be able to do any tricks.”
“Yes,” nodded Bluve. “According to this data, unicorns are able to… do magic because, thanks to close connection, their brain can give much more complicated and detailed commands to battery organ and main channels than – earth ponies’ and pegasi’s possibilities in this… area are quite limited. And horn serves only as antenna.”
“Hm, that’s really interesting,” noticed Karin.
“Then do you think that alicorns’ magic work the same way?” asked Kor.
“I bet so,” answered Max. “I’ve just look through some files with deciphers of genes and… Ponies’ genome suggests that this scheme, connection of two systems, is the only possible way. The reason of alicorns’ incredible power is something else. And what exactly – we won’t know until we take an alicorn.”
“That’s risky.”
“I know. But we have no other choice.”
“Well, ladies and gentlesents,” Affi summed up. “We learned how unicorns can control the energy mix. Now we have to learn what is this mix…”
“Ehm, guys?” a voice from the side came.

Researchers turned to the source of the sound. It was Sheim and Zet’rar, who just left one of the small ancillary laboratories.

“Oh, it’s you,” spelled Affi.
“Yep,” nodded lads.
“So, did you find anything?” asked Oma.
“Yeah, did you solve the riddle of these crystals?” added Max.
“We did,” answered Zet’rar. “We found how do these crystals accumulate so much energy.”
“And what’s the secret?”
“As it turned out, there is nothing so supernatural in them,” said Sheim. “Ponies were right: these crystals work just like ordinary batteries.”
“Yeah,” nodded Zet’rar. “Attach a couple of contacts and here you go.”
“Principles of energy accumulation are the most typical and even primitive,” continued Sheim. “As you know, electric charge accumulates on the surfaces, so in ancient storage batteries there was a lot of layers of winding to accumulate more energy. Here we have the same scheme: these crystals aren’t solid masses of rock, they are penetrated with incredible number of micropores. They occupy about one-third to two-fifth of total volume of a crystal. And because of their sizes and density, they increase total surface square, well, about in 864 times.”
“Wow!”
“Indeed, but that’s not all. We’ve found that this scheme isn’t the main. The greatest amount of energy preserves thanks to simple chemical bonds.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. Again, typical for ancient batteries scheme: release of energy thanks to chemical reaction. Only particular feature is that the reaction starts spontaneously when crystal appears under the influence of even the weakest current.”
“Wait,” Bluve intervened. “Energy release thanks to chemical reaction is usually weak if it is continuous, it is great only when the reaction is rapid.”
“Yeah,” nodded Kor after short thinking. “Since the times of academy exercises I remember that such batteries are low-powered.”
“And here’s the crux of the matter,” grinned Zet’rar.
“Oh yes,” sighed Sheim. “You see, crystals can accumulate so much energy thanks to their formula. It’s so difficult that it’s just a true nightmare: one single molecule consists of 5823 atoms. 5823 atoms!!! And 14257 bonds.”

His colleagues choked.

“Yep, that’s quite the formula…” uttered Max.
“I just can’t believe that it can be so many atoms in a formula of inorganic substance,” spelled Bluve.
“Well, these crystals are one of our champions,” said Sheim. “There are silicon, carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, sulfur, nitrogen, sodium, potassium, iron, aluminum, chlorine… about half of whole periodic table in this wacky formula. Such diversity provides incredible variety of chemical bonds, and many of them are very powerful. Thanks just to this crystals can contain incredible amounts of energy.”
“That’s very impressive, boys, I must say,” said Affi.
“Glad to hear it,” nodded Sheim and Zet’rar.
“And what have you found?” wondered Zet’rar.
“Well, we found that unicorns can control the energy mix thanks to tight connection between nerves and ETS,” answered Bluve.
“And that the horns, in fact, are only antennas,” added Karin.
“That’s interesting,” Zet’rar rubbed his chin. “I thought that role of horn would be greater.”
“Me too,” said Sheim.
“Sorry for the disappointment, but these are the facts.”
“We see.”
“And have you heard anything from Edez?” asked Affi.
“He didn’t tell us,” answered Sheim.
“Yeah, He just locked himself in the second ancillary laboratory and we heard nothing from him,” added Zet’rar.
“Well, then we have no more questions. We have to wait for him.”

And at this moment doors to the second minor laboratory opened.

“Eureka!!!” sounded from inside of it.
“Edez, dammit, quiet!” hissed Affi.
“Oh, excuse me,” apologized the first curator when he came out and closed the door. “I just got too excited.”
“And what could make you so excited?”
“I have finally found it.”
“You learned how do pegasi walk on clouds?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell us!” said Max. “We all want to know the secret.”
“Yeah,” confirmed others.
“Well, this secret has two components. First of them is that energy repulsive ability of some parts of pegasi’s ETS. As it turned out, it’s inherent not only for wings, but for legs too, except that in a less degree. And, also, it manifests all the time. It’s power doesn’t depend on anything, it’s constant. And the second component are the clouds themselves. Well, here they allow pegasi to walk on them.”
“Ehm, what do you mean by this?” asked Oma.
“I mean that properties of the clouds make such thing possible. You see, local clouds are different from usual for planets of this type.”
“And what is this difference?” wondered Sheim.
“As it should be, clouds here consist of droplets and vapor, but water of these droplets and vapor… If we were on Ateir, and I saw such data of air pollution analysis, I would go to Air Purity Service and disembowel some ones there, really. One three hundredth to one hundredth of all material of the droplets are various admixtures, mostly salts.”
“You mean local clouds consist of ocean-like water?” surprised Kor.
“Ehm, no. They have different chemical composition: greatest part of cloud droplet salts are carbonates, bicarbonates and silicates.”
“I do not quite understand…” uttered Karin. “What is the role of these salts?”
“Thanks to them clouds can accumulate energy from environment. The amount isn’t so great because of lean solution, but still you can find a small charge in each small cloud. Concentration of energy gradually gets noticeably higher than in environment, and repulsive ability of pegasi’s ETS manifests itself stronger. And, as result, they can walk on clouds without any strain while others have to use magic to adapt their ETS.”
“Now I get it. Thanks.”
“Always welcome. So, and what about you?”
“Well, we have found how unicorns can do their magic,” said Bluve. “Original hypothesis was correct.”
“The only “but” now is the question of their taxonomy. Earth ponies, pegasi and unicorns turn out to be not three different species, but subspecies or even races.”
“And we solved the mystery of energy crystals,” said Zet’rar. “Results turned out to be quite difficult, but there was nothing supernatural. All their properties can be explained by natural effects and phenomena.”
“Yes. Micropores and complex chemical composition were the reasons,” added Sheim.
“Hm, interesting, interesting… This is all the information?”
“Yes,” answered Affi. “We finished our work. You missed the most curious parts.”
“Well, my bad luck.”
“All right, guys, you can bring her ho…”

At that moment unicorn deeply breathed and moved. Researchers gulped and stood still. Some ones got pale. Unicorn fidgeted and yawned. She didn’t open her eyes, but she began to get up. Researchers got scared. It happened again! They started to turn to each other like they wanted to get the solution from his or her neighbor. But they were lost or just couldn’t come up with anything. Unicorn meanwhile got up and got ready to open her eyes.

They had only a couple of seconds. A couple of seconds not to let the takes see the laboratory. Although it seemed to be impossible, it happened. Suddenly for everybody Karin swiftly raised her forelimb, released her claws and then made a fist. In a moment after unicorn wheezed, opened her eyes, then rolled them and fell down unconscious.

Team One for some seconds silently, without a move, looked at the pony, then they turned to their colleague.

“What was that?” exclaimed Kor, Sheim and Oma.
“What have you done to her?” worried Affi.
“Well, I sent her to faint,” answered Karin.
“How?” exclaimed Bluve and Max.
“Squeezed her carotid a bit with my telekinesis.”
“What?”
“You squeezed her carotid artery?” Max flew into a tantrum. “Do you realize how dangerous it was?”
“I know it perfectly. But I know very well how to do this trick.”
“What? Really?”
“You can check her. You’ll see that she is fine.”

Max glanced at her one more time and took a medical scanner.

“Heh, she is fine,” he said when he finished. “In fact, she’s just sound asleep now.”
“I told you!” said Karin.
“Well then I apologize.”
“You know, it was impressive,” said Kor. “Where did you learned it?”
“Oh, at training center for telekinetics. It was one of the basic tricks of advanced self-defense courses.”
“Not bad.”
“Indeed.”
“When she’ll wake up?” asked Affi.
“Well, not in the next fourteen supramoments.”
“Good. Then let’s bring her back. Zet’rar, teleport her.”

Zet’rar gave a nod and came to the main terminal. He quickly switched on the transportation beam and typed the coordinates. When everything was prepared, he gave the final command. The device activated, and in a moment later white unicorn was in her bed, peacefully snuffling and having a dream. Researchers, when they got assured that the taken was successfully brought back, returned to work. Private analysis and preparation of the report awaited.