Chapter 22: New Objectives
Onto the Pony Planet
Chapter 22—New Objectives
Admiral Biscuit
Trixie couldn't sleep.
It wasn't for a lack of trying. The bed which had been brought up for her was fit for nobility—she'd have expected nothing else in the palace—and she did not want for covers or pillows. It was, undoubtedly, the best bed she'd ever lain upon, better than the simple cot in her old wagon, and much better than the pallet of straw she'd had in her cell.
The problem was her mind. It just wouldn't shut up.
She was no stranger to sleepless nights. Her cell certainly hadn’t been restful, but even before that, there were nights in her wagon when she wondered just what she was doing with her life. She’d had her share of bad shows, of days when she put everything she had into a performance, only to be met with silence or scorn from the audience.
And even when she had a good show, she always was cursed with self-doubt. Tricks hadn’t gone quite right, or props had malfunctioned. She’d misspoken, or accidentally chosen an audience member who’d upstaged her. No matter how much effort she put into her craft, it was never perfect, and that bothered her.
It’s stupid to be thinking about my show. She rolled over, kicking around her legs to reposition the blanket. Stupid Trixie. There is no show, there is no wagon because you traded it all for a doomed revenge scheme.
She buried her face in the pillow and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to think of something soothing. What was it you told Sparkle? A calm pool of water . . .
For a moment, the image came to her. It had been one of her meditation techniques before her shows; now, like everything else, it was hopelessly corrupted. Instead of being restful and calming, it brought back more painful memories, although there was at least a little bit of joy to it: she had been able to teach Twilight something new, and she’d even helped Princess Celestia.
She rolled on to her back. Neither of those things provided much in the way of comfort.
Finally, she pushed the covers off herself. If sleep would not come, she might as well do something. Even if she didn't know what that something was.
Trixie lit her horn to guide her way and left the bedroom.
She stopped in the bathroom long enough to study her reflection in the mirror. She never considered herself vain, but a mare ought to look her best no matter what, and it was hardly any effort to brush her platinum mane and tail into their proper order. A quick illusion took care of the bags under her eyes, and she was ready to face the house.
Satisfied that she looked as presentable as anypony would in the middle of the night, she marched into the central room of Luna's tower. She had come to think of it as a living room, although she was sure that wasn't what Luna would call it.
Trixie made slow circuits of the room, examining the paintings on the wall with vague curiosity. Art wasn't really to her interest, and the only thing which could be said for these was that they were old. Probably worth thousands of bits to a collector.
Surely, they were worth enough to buy a new wagon, with some left over to start a new traveling magic show. She'd never made it out West, which was one of her regrets. It was too expensive to have her wagon hauled by train, which had forced her hoof. Long expanses of Equestria were barren, and although she probably could have hired a stallion or two to help her pull the wagon cross-country, she wasn’t sure she’d like the constant company.
Not that it had been anything more than a dream, and it was now more out of reach than it had ever been. Her wagon was gone, reduced to splinters by the star-bear, and that had just been the beginning of her downhill slide.
Even her revenge had turned to ashes in her mouth. And if the humiliation of failure hadn't been enough, it had been followed by prison, a daring escape, and a new gilded cage.
It was no way for a mare to live. One way or another, she needed to be free.
She paused in front of the doors leading to Luna's study, and the balcony beyond.
I'll just get some fresh air, she thought. That's all. I can go out to the balcony, and maybe look up at the stars.
Whatever came of the star I found for the Princess? She paused, her hoof on the door knob. As always, instinctively saving her magic for the show won out over using it for the mundane task of turning a doorknob.
Those had been good nights. She’d been able to spend time outside, and pretend that she wasn’t a huge failure while she searched the night sky.
With a low snarl, she turned the doorknob and slipped through the opening, pushing the door shut behind her.
The silvery moonlight illuminated the room and softened the edges of everything. She quickly looked around, half-expecting one of the weird bat-guards to be standing off in corner, watching her, but the room was empty.
She was partway across when the books piled on Luna’s desk caught her eye. She hadn’t really been paying attention to them before, although she had noticed them. They stood out—they didn’t look like anything a pony would make.
Trixie stopped in thought. She was in Princess Luna’s study without permission, and she was about to go over to the Princess’ desk and look at her personal books. She knew that there were bat-guards patrolling, and Dusk Glimmer might even check in her bedroom and notice she was missing. She should hurry back to her bed, thank the stars that she hadn’t been caught, and not even consider picking up one of those books and looking at them.
She took one last look back at the door, stealthily crossed to the desk, and grabbed the top one on the stack. Her ears flicked around for any kind of noise, but the room stayed silent.
I’ll just take one quick look, and then put it back, she thought. Nopony will know.
Dusk Glimmer examined the empty bedroom, her heart sinking. This was not what she wanted to see first thing in the morning.
She trotted across the room and unceremoniously yanked the covers off the bed, even though she knew she would find nothing there. Trixie was gone. She made a circuit of the bedroom, just to be certain, even going as far as checking under the bed, but found nothing, so she went back into the hallway.
She turned her head to the bathroom. Maybe Trixie had just gotten up, and was in there. Dusk knocked softly on the door, but there was no answer. She pushed the door open and looked around the vacant room. At least the window’s shut, so she didn’t go out that way.
Princess Luna ordered you to keep a good eye on her, and you failed.
Dusk had ordered the thestrals to keep watch on all the windows and balconies, just in case Trixie tried to jump again, but she hadn’t thought to order them to guard the unicorn’s room. She’d assumed that she’d wake up if Trixie got up, but clearly she hadn’t, and if she couldn’t find the showmare alive and well, Luna would have her head.
She frantically looked up and down the hallway. She didn’t want to raise the alarm too soon; there might be a perfectly logical explanation for Trixie’s disappearance. She might have been looking for the kitchen—maybe she was hungry. She might be hiding somewhere, either as a joke, or because she was scared.
I should have been in the room with her. I won’t make that mistake again. If there is an again. Luna will be back from Ponyville soon, and if I can’t produce Trixie. . . .
Dusk opened a broom closet, checked the corners, and then nosed the door back shut. Don’t panic. Think logically. Start from one place, and work your way through the tower. First thestral you see, you ask him for help. Now is not the time for foalish pride.
If she’s trying to escape, she’ll want to be by the tower doors, Dusk decided. Close enough that she can make a quick break for it, but far enough away that she won’t be obvious to the guards.
She headed down the hallway to the tower entrance. Luna enjoyed flying much more than Celestia, and rarely used that door, but she occasionally had flightless visitors, and of course most of her domestic staff had to use the stairs.
“Have either of you seen Trixie?” she asked the door guards.
“She’s in the study. Captain’s watching the door, and Nightgazer is outside on the balcony.” He turned his head down the hallway and began making the high-pitched chittering that was unique to the thestrals. Dusk could very faintly pick it up, if she concentrated, but not clearly enough to have learned any of their language.
“What’s she doing?”
He grinned at her, just enough to show his fangs. “She’s sleeping, captain says. On the couch. On a book.”
Dusk let out a huge sigh of relief. “Thanks, guys. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.”
Dale had been so focused on learning with Lyra that he barely even noticed when the construction ponies came in. He probably would have missed them completely, except that Ambrosia stuck her head in the room and greeted him.
It was tempting to leave the books behind and go and see what they were up to—Dale always preferred hands-on learning to book learning—but he was still frustrated by his inability to pick up their language. The whole process of making gestures and speaking like an infant was stressful, and it was proving a barrier to understanding their world.
Still, he'd rather be with her than Cheerilee. Lyra didn't get frustrated when the lesson went off on a tangent. He looked back down at the top book on the pile—the copy of Your Home he and Cheerilee had been wading through last night—and suddenly it occurred to him that he could have both.
“Dale want . . . Dale and Lyra not read books, Dale and Lyra walk house. Dale show thing, Lyra speak thing, Dale speak thing.”
Lyra blinked at him, and then her eyes lit up. Apparently, she didn't like the idea of sitting in the office going over books all day long, either. Besides, he thought, I'm probably going to be back here when Cheerilee returns. Might as well walk around during the morning.
“Start here,” Lyra instructed, and pointed to the window behind him. She gave her name for it, spelling it out for him.
“Wait.” Dale rummaged through his notes, until he found the sheet of paper that had their alphabet written out in it. Lyra began again, while he slowly wrote down the letters.
“Window,” he told her, once he'd finished writing the pronunciation, spelling, and definition on his paper.
She nodded, and parroted the word back to him, lifting a quill with her field to write it down on her paper.
As they continued through the room, both of their papers quickly filled up. Dale vaguely remembered that dictionaries had once been assembled out of file cards with words and definitions written on them, and a wry smile came to his face as he imagined these notes one day being used as the backbone of a Pony-to-English dictionary.
Once they made it further into the house, though, the repeated trips to the inkwell would be problematic, and it would be nearly impossible to juggle paper, an inkwell, and a quill without either writing illegibly, or spilling ink all over the floor. Suddenly, he remembered the felt-tip pen that Fancy Pants had given him. It was upstairs in his dresser—it wouldn't take more than a moment to retrieve.
Plus, now that they were done with the office, they had to start somewhere in the house; why not his room?
• • •
“Underpants,” Dale said, a faint blush on his face. It hadn't occurred to him that Lyra would see him opening the dresser drawer as invitation to empty the contents on the bed, and then to name them all.
She nodded, and took the pen from his hand. The tingling still bothered him slightly—it brought to mind all the scare stories he'd heard about getting brain cancer from living under power lines—but hopefully that wouldn't happen here. More likely, his apprehension was caused by her telekinesis being something he couldn't explain, and therefore instinctively concluded that it must be dangerous.
“Um.” Lyra studied the underwear closely. He was not going to take off his pants to show her where they went. “Is . . .”
“First underpants,” Dale said, pantomiming putting on a pair, “Then pants.” He pointed to his second pair of trousers, the ones that Rarity had mended, then to the pair he was currently wearing. Finally, when she still hadn’t come up with a word, he lifted his shirt and pulled the waistband of his underwear up slightly, so that she could see it.
She frowned, giving them a dubious look. “Diaper?” she suggested.
Dale dutifully wrote the word down. It figures that she's having trouble with that word, since if they wear anything at all, they don't seem to like covering their backsides. That wasn't totally true; Lyra's fancy dress that she'd worn to the town meeting had covered her as completely as a formal gown, but it wasn't the sort of thing he saw ponies wearing around town.
As they finished going through his meager possessions, Dale wondered what a pony house really looked like. Even the book only showed the basics; they didn't have the trinkets and souvenirs that everyone picked up over their life, and of course the embassy didn't either. It would be nice to see a home where normal ponies lived.
Dale led her out into the hallway, and looked up and down. On one end was Starlight and Diamond Mint's room—he couldn't go in there. Kate's room was out, and there probably wasn't anything in Lyra's room, either. That left only the bathroom to explore.
Ambrosia and Silver Spanner were both in the bathroom, installing tile over the cut they'd made in the floor to run pipes. Neither of them noticed him standing in the doorway, and he paused to watch them work.
The two were as professional as any construction crew he'd ever seen on Earth. Ambrosia would spread a patch of grout on the subfloor, and then Silver Spanner would levitate over a tile and set into place. Ambrosia gave each a slight nudge to make sure that they were square, and then grouted the edges, before moving on to the next one.
He could see that the tiles they'd already installed were perfectly aligned, even though neither pony was giving the floor her full attention. While he only picked up a few words of their conversation, it was fairly obvious given their giggles and occasional hoof-gestures that they weren't talking about the tiles.
What are they talking about, I wonder? What kind of idle gossip do ponies have? Is it like the boys back in the machine shop, always talking about girls and cars and sports? Do they have professional sports? Would they brag about their wagons? Do they customize them?
Ambrosia cocked her head as she went back to the grout pan, and he saw an ear turn back. Silver Spanner looked up at him and shuffled backward for an instant, before breaking into a smile.
“Hello,” Dale said, feeling slightly foolish for interrupting their work. “Dale and Lyra, um, name things in house. In here.”
He held out the paper with their notes. Both construction ponies stood and walked over to him, and looked at the list.
Dale was utterly confounded at their expressions. Ambrosia looked at the paper blankly, while Silver Spanner nodded, then tapped her co-worker on the shoulder.
The pair held a brief conference. Dale wasn't sure what to make of it—he didn't want to move into the room, in case they were debating whether or not the tile was dry enough to walk on—but he had a feeling that there was something else they were talking about, something that Silver Spanner understood, but Ambrosia didn't.
He looked down at Lyra—surely she was following along with the discussion, even if she wasn't adding anything to it. He was going to have to ask her later—he was really curious. Finally, the two ponies reached some sort of an understanding, although Ambrosia still looked dubious.
Dale kept the conversation in the back of his mind as he and Lyra went through the bathroom, identifying fixtures. True, they had all been in the book downstairs, but it was so much easier to look at the actual physical object, to point to it and touch it, than it had been to see a flat drawing of it.
Both of the construction ponies got involved as well, identifying individual parts rather than entire assemblies. That was less-useful vocabulary for him; he wasn't going to be going to the hardware store any time soon to purchase a bag of grout or a bathtub drainpipe. Still, he didn't want to discourage them, so he dutifully wrote the words down, and gave them the English translations.
Before too long, he and the construction ponies were in a vocabulary competition. After he'd provided English translations for every pipe that Silver Spanner had named, she moved on to her tool belt, and it hadn't taken long before Ambrosia had joined in with her own tools.
They'd only stumped him once. Ambrosia kept a hoof-pick in her toolkit, something he never would have been able to identify if she hadn't demonstrated it for him.
Well, they wouldn't have figured out fingernail clippers, he thought. If I had a pair.
That was something he wasn't going to be able to find here. There were so many basic toiletries he didn't have—they hadn't been on his mind at the hospital. He'd have to figure out a way to discuss those with Lyra, along with finding out how soon he could get more clothes.
“What are you doing?”
He turned around to see Kate looking at him with a slightly glassy look, the pink nurse right behind her.
“Um, we're talking about the bathroom. What's finished, and what isn't,” he told her. It wasn't quite true, of course, but Silver Spanner had proudly showed off the working shower, bathtub, sink, and toilet, which told him that they were finished and connected to the pipes. There was still a bit of finish-work to be done; there was no shower curtain, nor were their shades on the window.
Of course, if the hospital bathroom were any indicator, those might not have been planned for the bathroom. The floor might have been designed so that a shower curtain wasn’t needed . . . but he’d be really happy to have some kind of drape for the window. It was yet another thing he'd have to discuss with Lyra once he learned a bit more vocabulary.
“Oh.” Kate looked over the room curiously. “I hope they get done soon. I don't like the outhouse. It's dirty.”
Dale rolled his eyes. He was no stranger to outhouses, and the one here was the cleanest he'd ever seen, unlike those stinky pit toilets that still were all over campgrounds and rest stops in the UP. There hadn't even been a single fly buzzing around inside.
“It's ready to use—or it will be, by the end of the day, I'd imagine.” He pointed at the floor. “Once they finish with the tiles. The toilet's installed, and Silver Spanner was flushing it earlier. The sink's hooked up, too—and so's the shower. Probably shouldn't use that until tomorrow, though. Give the grout time to dry.”
“Good.” She reached down and ran her hand through Lyra's mane. “Do you know when we're going to get TVs?”
“I'll have to ask.” Dale added that to his mental list. They hadn't had them at the hospital, or at least not that he'd seen. No reason to expect that theirs look like ours. They might have been there, and you just didn't recognize them.
He looked back towards the bathroom, to see what the two construction ponies were doing. Silver Spanner was back at the tile pile, while Ambrosia was still standing in the doorway, her nostrils flaring as she took in Kate's scent.
A short whistle from Silver Spanner caused her to turn her head, and she went back to the tiling, flicking her tail a couple of times before she settled down and began work again.
It's mostly the normal ponies that do the sniffing thing, Dale thought. As far as I've seen, anyway. I wonder if they have a better sense of smell than the unicorns? I’ll have to ask Lyra about that, too. He scribbled a short note on his paper.
“Do you want to come with us?” he asked Kate. “Lyra and I are learning each other's language. Maybe you could join us, and pick up a few words. Then you could talk to your nurse.”
“I guess. There's nothing else to do.” She picked at her bandage idly, then lifted her left hand and glanced at her fingernail polish. “I—you don't think they have any nail polish, do you? It's chipped. Oh, and I need a hairbrush, too. I can’t find mine. I think my bag got lost.”
Okay, I'm going to spend the afternoon telling them to find things like brushes and combs and so forth. Soap, too. And towels—I think they're starting to wean Kate off the drugs, and she's going to be a lot happier if she at least has her basic needs taken care of.
Moller and Richter leaned over the desk, where the tube took center stage. It was about the diameter of a magic marker, although longer—about a foot long.
Moller carefully slit the foil with his Swiss Army pocketknife and pulled the lid off. They'd found similar tubes in Dale's garage and basement, most of them holding machine tool bits. Undoubtedly, this had begun as the same, until Dale had repurposed it.
He tipped the tube over his desk, increasing the angle when nothing came out. When it was all the way vertical, and still nothing had come, Richter groaned.
“Well, that's a bust,” Richter said sarcastically. “Maybe he forgot to put anything in there. Or maybe it's some kind of crazy symbolism. He said it would be proof, there's nothing, therefore there is no proof.”
“It's not nothing.” Moller squinted down the tube. “It's . . . a hair.”
He slid the tweezers out of his pocketknife, and delicately pulled the hair forth. It was a long, pink strand, curled up to fit inside the tube. With a frown, he stretched it out on the desk as best he could.
“Okay.” Richter glanced at it. “We've already got aqua hair, and now we've got pink hair. Any reports of missing clowns in Kent County?”
Moller ignored the sarcasm. “I don't think it was a clown.” He opened a drawer and pulled out an evidence bag. “It's more—well, keeping with the funny-colored horse theme, it might be a tail hair.”
“Except your witnesses said the little horse was aqua with a whitish mane and tail.”
Moller shrugged, grabbed it with a latex glove, and pushed it into an evidence bag. He sealed it, wrote his badge number on it, and grabbed a second for the tube. “Might have been another one back at his camp. You know, there was a horse ranch on South Fox, and horses can swim.”
“Doesn't matter,” Richter decided. “Look, I don't doubt that there was some kind of animal there in the camp. All the eyewitnesses saw it, and it left hoofprints. The lab says that both the stride and hoof size suggest it was a pony, foal, or miniature horse—something equine.
“But listen to me—whether we find it or not isn't my big concern. Because the pony didn't make them disappear; he did that. Somehow.” He picked up the evidence bag and examined it for a moment, before tossing it back on the desk.
“We can snip a bit off this, and get it to Quantico, Michigan State University, the MSP lab, whatever, and I bet you gross examination will come back as being equine in nature, just like the last one. And if they ever get a workable DNA sample, that'll say the same thing, too. Fine. So there was a second pony. He could have a whole goddamn team of ponies on that island, and I promise you, none of them made Kate vanish.
“Look, Moller. I don't want to disrespect you. This is your building, your town, your state, your people. I told you I asked around, and everyone said you were one of the good guys. And I'm okay with getting second billing on this thing, so long as we solve it, right? We get Kate back, I don't care if the headline says Michigan State Police or Federal Bureau of Investigation first. I really don't.
“But that lenience only goes so far. I'm not going to watch you go haring off on some wild goose chase to find the phantom pony. What we need to do is retrench, rethink what we've got. Go through all the evidence in the house—Mr. Paard's surely left clues behind; we just haven't figured them out yet. Maybe go back further in his history. Think about places he might be familiar with. If Kate's still alive, she's in some obscure place he knows very well. Somewhere private. We should get more investigators out on Beaver Island and South Fox. Press the locals. That kind of thing.
“I want to keep working with you, but I can't have you screwing up the case, so from here on out, it's gonna be my way or I'll get you pulled off.” Richter reached into his pocket and slid out his cell phone.
He punched in the local director's phone number, then looked back at Moller. The detective's face was pale, and his eyes were bugging out of his head.
Richter was briefly distracted by a warning tone from his phone. “No signal?”
He looked up just in time to see Moller lean across the desk and put a hand over the evidence bag.
“What color is this hair?”
“I am through playing games.”
“What color is it?!” Moller roared. “Come on, you looked at it with me. You dismissed it as being irrelevant—what color is it?”
“It's pink. You know that. So what?”
Moller shook his head. “Not any more.”
Richter stared down at the bag as Moller pulled his hand off.
The hair was still pink.
He was at a complete loss. He'd been growing slightly concerned over Moller's actions, but he was now wondering if the man wasn't having an aneurysm or a mental breakdown.
He'd seen it before, unfortunately. Too much time on a case, pressure from above and from the media—it added up. Usually, by the time a cop had gotten Moller's seniority, he'd learned how to manage that, but there were cases that just gnawed and gnawed. The FBI’s failure to find the Unabomber had been one of them, a thorn in their side for decades.
And then the hair turned cerulean. Not all at once; it changed from one end to the other over a period of several seconds.
Richter's cell phone dropped from nerveless fingers. He was distantly aware of the clatter as it hit the tile, but that was unimportant. He stared at the hair, daring it to perform, and perform it did, slowly changing to turquoise in the same manner.
It turned cobalt blue next, and then back to pink, starting the cycle anew. It reminded Richter of some fuzzball made out of fiber optics he'd seen in a store once—it did the same thing, although only the ends of the fiber glowed. The color would slowly shift from one thing to another—but how was it possible that a hair could do that?
He warily picked up the evidence bag, making sure that there was no trickery. Meanwhile, Moller pointed his cell phone at the bag, and started taking a video. As soon as it was recording, he moved his arm next to the hair, where the camera could pick up the sweep of the second hand on his watch.
He waited until it went through two complete cycles, saved the video, and then set his phone down on the desk. “You know, I don't have a cell signal, either. No bars. I should have a cell signal.”
Moller tugged the bag out of Richter's grasp, and set it back on the center of the desk. Then he opened the bottom left drawer, pulled out a fifth of Jack Daniels, and set it beside the hair.
“When I got promoted to detective,” Moller began, “my squad all chipped in and bought that bottle for me—said that every proper detective has a bottle of hooch in his desk. I was going to pass it around at the party, but then somebody said something about saving it until I had some 'hot dame' walk in, or got a case worthy of Sherlock Holmes. First one's never happened—but I'd say we've got the second right here.
“Here's what I think now. Yesterday, I thought that maybe the Faraday cage in the garage was to protect him, or something of his, from some sort of evil government rays. Power lines, cell phones, orbital mind-control lasers—take your pick. And I thought his tinfoil tube served the same purpose. Keep 'Them' from finding his 'Proof.' But now, I think it was to protect him from this.
“We know that the Coast Guard reported that their radios weren't working when they got close to the island—not until after that bubble disappeared. Cell phones probably wouldn't have a signal that far out, anyway, so nobody'd think anything of that.”
He slid the bag idly around on the desk. “I don't want to cut off a sample. I don't know what would happen if we did. But I think this goes beyond what any police lab can figure out, wouldn't you agree?”
Richter nodded dumbly.
“We're also going to need to keep this thing protected when we're not looking at it.” Moller picked up the desk phone, and punched a couple of numbers. “Adams? It's Moller. You still got any of those lead bags for film? Yeah. Yeah, the ones for if you think you might have to go through an X-ray. I know we've been digital for years, but you boys never throw anything out. Uh-huh. No, biggest one you've got. Okay. Send someone up with it as soon as you find it, okay? Yes, if you come up with it, I'll tell Pineda to stop calling you a bunch of hoarders.” He hung up the phone. “Well, that's taken care of.” He slid the phone across the desk, turning it so that Richter could see the keypad. “Landline still works, so unless you want to wait for that lead bag and see if my theory's right, you might as well use it to call your boss and get me off the case.
“No? Pity. I've got a feeling when this is over, there's going to be so many levels of 'top secret' applied to the case, I won't even be able to talk to anyone about anything.”
He twisted the cap off the fifth and took a swig, and then slid it to Richter. “I don’t have any tumblers—never actually thought I’d be opening this.”
Moller waited until the FBI agent took the bottle. He didn’t uncap it; he tilted it up on edge and slowly rocked it under his finger, watching the amber liquid slosh back and forth inside.
Moller crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back slightly in his chair. “Alright. Here's where we go from here.
“Sooner or later this thing's gonna turn into a government hairball. When that happens, we're gonna have every single DHS agency, you guys included, running around in circles, desperately trying to assign the blame to someone else—and that goat grab is going to be about keeping jobs, not finding Kate. Seen it before when the budget gets tight and there's the threat of a State Police barracks closing. If the TV coverage I saw after Katrina is any indicator, you feds have it down to a fine art.”
“Before that happens, I want answers. You and I, we're the only ones who have seen all the evidence together. We send a bit here, and a bit there, to the expert in whatever field who can get up on the stand and say, ‘Yes, this is AB blood.’ They don't even know the vic, because if they did, there'd be the potential accusation of collusion.
“And that's fine for a normal case. I get a report from the coroner saying that the vic died of ten stab wounds, I get a report that the knife is consistent with the wounds, I get a report that the blood on the knife matches the vic's, I get prints off the knife, and another expert seals the deal with DNA—you know how it is.
“But you go to a museum, that's not how they work. They've got a whole team, who knows where the ancient urn was found. One guy says what it was made out of, and he tells everyone. Another guy's carbon-dated it, so everyone on the team knows how old it is. They all pool their knowledge and come up with a best theory collectively. They're probably not always right; maybe that ancient Greek amphora is really an ancient Persian knock-off amphora, but they usually figure it out.
“I didn't tell the lab boys at MSU anything, other than they were backing up what the FBI lab found. Which was nothing. What if I add in some other details? Maybe give some more context to the evidence.
“And that book—the one you've got your wizards looking at. I know that in the antique art world, the canvas, wood, and paint are all big deals. Do you think we might know more if we know what the book is bound with? What kind of glue was used? Maybe the ink type? We've got those odd weapons on the beach. Let's get the metal analyzed. See what it's made of. Ditto for the buckle on those saddlebags.
“And let's get a team of actual scientists out to the beach. See what they can find. I know we'd ignore it if it didn't look like evidence that would prove a crime, but maybe they can come up with something we overlooked.”
“You're not seriously giving your aliens pitch again, are you?” Richter wrapped his hand around the neck of the bottle. “Because, no offense, everyone you suggest that to is going to dismiss you as a nut.”
“Of course I'm not going to say aliens. I'm going to lay out the facts. Say what we have. What we know. Maybe a little of what we suspect—you know, eyewitnesses testimony, that kind of thing. Three witnesses saw this. Let the scientists piece it all together. Heck, for all I know, Dale built himself a Star-Trek style teleporter in his basement and took it out to the island to try it out. Maybe he had a bunch of lasers, and he accidentally zapped himself, Kate, and the horse out of existence.”
Richter took a long pull from the bottle. “You can't really build that. And even if you did, it would leave evidence behind.”
“First time we tried to prosecute a hacker, we lost the case. Caught the guy red-handed, but we didn't know enough about computers to prove it was him. Could have been anyone, the jury thought—'cause they didn't know, either.
“He's in jail, now, because after that we got experts, and we learned about electronic evidence. The next time we caught the guy, we could prove he did it, and how he did it. Whatever Dale did—it may be a one-time thing. Maybe it's not something we're ever going to see again . . . or maybe this is just the first crime we've seen committed in a new way.
“All I know is it won't hurt to have a few more experts weigh in. See what they come up with.”
Richter sighed. “You do that, and you run the risk of losing chain of custody for most of the evidence. It’s one thing with the book; that’s not likely to be a primary piece of evidence, which is the only reason I let the School of Wizardry look at it. But you’re talking giving away things that’re going to matter in a case, and when the D.A. looks through the file, he’s going to object to everything involving those items.”
“MSU handles evidence for us all the time, and we’ve got procedures in place to maintain chain of custody. I’m not saying that we send off evidence packets to every major university in the Midwest, just that we give them some context and start looking for things we normally wouldn’t. Let the scientists figure out what they can do with the evidence, rather than tell them what to look for.”
“Fine.” Richter took another drink, then capped the bottle. “Go ahead. You can have lead on this tar-baby. Call whoever you want.”
The chalkboard in the library was covered with equations. After coming up with her theory, Twilight had thought that before she wrote a letter to the Princess, she ought to make sure that there weren't any other possibilities.
Unfortunately, a morning's research had proven that there were other possibilities. Different kinds of wire might have worked as well—even a trail of bit coins, so long as they were all touching, would have done the job.
On top of that, there was the big unknown when it came to the creatures. In her time in Ponyville, she'd learned that zebras excelled in potions and natural remedies, which was a completely foreign concept to her. They'd been given no more mention in school other than the fact that earth ponies were good at growing things and making machines, or pegasi could manipulate the weather. Everypony knew that—that was why the three tribes had had to work together to make Equestria great. No one tribe could do it on their own.
For all she knew, the creatures might posses a magic heretofore unknown to ponykind. Their world could be brimming with it, but if it wasn't something ponies had ever observed, she would be unable to account for it in her calculations.
Furthermore, Luna had got her to thinking—maybe Lyra really was better at magic than she let on. Heck, she could even have paid a unicorn mage to find a loophole in the spell. It didn't strike Twilight as the kind of thing she'd do, but Rarity once ran a race after hiding in a mudhole, and even Rainbow Dash went to the spa on rare occasions. Ponies were annoyingly unpredictable.
She was about to throw her chalk to the ground in frustration, and pen a letter to Celestia saying that there was no way to know how the creatures had gotten to Equestria, when a basic scientific principle reoccurred to her: Hockam's Razor. The simplest explanation which fit the facts was probably the right solution.
Lyra could secretly be more powerful than her, but had been hiding it all these years.
The alien creatures could posses some type of magic which nopony was aware of.
The whole thing could have been an elaborate sabotage conspiracy by Trixie and Princess Luna, for reasons unknown. Since I’m wildly speculating, maybe they plan to usurp the Equestrian throne, Twilight thought. And maybe I’ll sprout wings.
Or the wand the girl had been holding had contained fine, conductive wires. Small enough to be practically invisible, and they had burned off in the fulfillment of the spell.
She needed to get to the hospital. The proof would be in the pudding—or, in this case, the wand.
Twilight threw on her saddlebags, tossed a couple of reference books in, plus a copy of Starswirl's spell—just in case; she didn't want to have to go back to the library if she didn't have to—put a note on the door, and headed towards the hospital.
Much to her frustration, once she got there she discovered that the nurses had convinced Dr. Stable that all Kate's personal belongings should go with her to the embassy, no matter what they were or what condition they were in.
It was a pity; she would have liked to look at the white-noise producing rectangle again. Twilight was fairly well attuned to the leylines, and when the knobs on the top were played with, she'd been able to pick up layers of field. It wasn't very sensitive; the short-range thaumic analyzers the hospital had were far superior, and she had a machine in her basement which put them all to shame . . . but it was small and portable, and if she'd understood Dale's explanation, it was a way to carry voice over thaumic wave. Such a concept could revolutionize the telegraph industry.
She knew sound waves could be captured—records were proof of that—but the only way to get them from one place to another was to physically carry them. True, a pair of particularly high-level unicorns could potentially use dragonfire spells to get them back and forth—or, for that matter, one high-level unicorn and a dragon, or just two dragons—but dragonfire spells had several practical limitations.
“We do have something that may be helpful,” Redheart said, pulling Twilight out of her thoughts. “We weren't sure if it belonged to Ka-th-rin or not, and we didn't have any way to ask her.”
“Oh?” Twilight looked at the nurse hopefully.
Redheart nodded. “Come with me downstairs. We . . . I'm sorry, but we keep things we find stuck in ponies.”
“That must be a small collection.”
“You'd be surprised.”
Twilight followed Redheart to the basement, and into the doctor's lounge. “Wait here,” Redheart instructed. “The doctor's probably sleeping, so I'll get it and come right out. Last night, Lotus came in with an abscessed hoof—you’d think that she, of all ponies, would know how important proper hoof care is, but she was too busy to get it treated. The doctor was up half the night operating on it.”
“Is—is she going to be all right?”
“She’ll be on three legs for a day or two, but there won’t be any permanent harm done. Hopefully, she’ll learn for next time.”
Redheart was only gone for a couple of minutes, before she returned with a small cloth bag. Twilight opened it and looked inside, pulling out the darts which had been stuck in Lyra’s side.
They were slender cylinders, slightly bigger around than the shaft of a quill, and made out of a silver metal which felt slippery in Twilight’s field. One end had a short stump of wire, finer than the hair in her mane; the other end had a tiny barbed harpoon.
Twilight looked at the barb thoughtfully. It was a malevolent object, no doubt about that. It kind of reminded her of a fishhook, although it was straight. She could see how it was designed to stick into a pony and not easily come out, and she wondered about what kind of world these creatures lived in where such a thing was needed.
At the same time, it was an ingenious way to deliver a spell. Being entirely non-magical, it would probably pass through most ordinary shields, and if it moved at a fairly slow velocity, it would likely even make it through one with a kinetic barrier.
Kate followed them around until lunchtime; after lunch was over, she went back to her room with her doctors. Dale had mixed feelings about her: on the one hand, he was glad that she was up and about, but he couldn't help but think she was a time bomb just waiting for the right moment to explode.
He spent the first half of the afternoon discussing further needs with Lyra, which was a tedious process of sketching out the item he wanted, using their limited vocabulary to try and pin down exactly what it was, and then hope that they'd come to the same understanding.
When Cheerilee arrived, Lyra gave the list to Diamond Mint, and then sat down with Dale. He was relieved to know that she'd be going through the lesson with him, even if it was boring: moreso for her, since she already knew the basic words Cheerilee was teaching.
To his surprise, she didn't just sit there taking notes; instead, she chipped in, helping to explain things whenever he wasn't completely clear on the concept. Cheerilee was grateful for the assistance as well; while she was a better teacher than Lyra, she didn't have any idea what he knew and what he didn't, which had proved to be a major handicap for her the night before.
After their dinner break, the lesson finished up quicker than he'd expected, and Cheerilee actually seemed pleased by his progress, although he'd noticed she frequently flicked her ears back when he tried to pronounce something.
When it was over, Lyra gave the teacher a friendly nuzzle on the cheek; Dale settled for a fist-bump. Then he headed for the outhouse—even though the bathroom was finished, he desperately wanted to get outside, and it was as good an excuse as any.
Lyra came with him. He could guess by the look on her face she was having the same thoughts. He let her go first.
While he waited, he leaned back against the wall of the outhouse and looked around the yard. It was as quiet and peaceful as any Thomas Kinkade painting. Across the backyard, he saw the silhouette of a pony behind a window, and he idly wondered if she was a normal pony or a pegasus, and what she might think of having him as a neighbor.
He heard the door creak open beside him, and caught the top of the door with his hand, holding it open for Lyra, before stepping through to take his turn.
Lyra was standing on the path when he came out, looking up at the sky. Dale moved next to her and squatted down, so his head was nearly level with hers.
“Does Lyra—“ She turned her head to face him, her golden eyes dark in the faint light of a crescent moon. Dale swallowed a lump in his throat. “Does Lyra know which star Dale's home?”
She nodded and pointed a hoof into the sky.
He crouched down next to her, resting his face against her shoulder, where his eye could follow where she was pointing.
It's so tiny, he thought, and then he sat down hard, his eyes still glued to the sky. Everything he'd known his entire life was contained in a faint pinprick of light in a sea of blackness.
“Don't tell Kate,” he whispered, a hitch in his voice. Then he grabbed Lyra in a tight hug and wept into her mane.
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Post EVERYTHING!!!
5694771
I might have been curious to see if I could get all three bottom slots of the feature box.
5694777
So close!
I like all the shifts from "stuff happens" to "I'm going to start doing." There's just so much stuff too... Sheesh. Where do I start?!
Maybe I should just stick with:
5694892
Well, Meatloaf always said two outta three ain't bad.
There's some inspirational quote that would have been a perfect reply, if I could remember it.
Next chapter, we'll see Dale start to take the lead (I almost said 'take the reins').
lol
Oh, very nice! The pieces are starting to fall into place for a lot of folks, here...
It seems like it has been so long since we have seen Trixie. I still wonder what her purpose in the story is (besides finding the star for Celestia.) Her struggle with dark magic is interesting regardless and I wonder how it will eventually get involved with Dale and the rest of us. Maybe Human medical science has the key to curing her.
This will in no way come back to bite and humiliate anyone, Nope!
You an me both Dale! This chapter was a bit frustrating. It is good, but I really understand where Dale is coming from and wanted to know what was going on from the perspective of the other ponies.
So it seems that both Dale and Kate are under the impression that Ponies have a comparable level of technology. It makes a bit of sense for Kate due to her being higher than a kite on pain meds but from everything Dale has seen (hospital, construction of the embassy, the brief walk though the town to give a speech) I would have thought he would be having a bit more doubts by now.
I am impressed with Moller's plan here. I never really considered it before but establishing something that is usually considered as paranormal or supernatural as a fact is a lot like a court case, only the jury is the whole world.
Again I'm impressed I cannot imagine many people who could keep their goal in mind when confronted with the world shattering hair follicle.
I suppose since it is his original reason for becoming involved in this madness he can use it as a comping mechanism, but I'd personally end up drinking a lot more of that Daniels and start looking at the sky a bit more (or trying not to.)
It is funny that the taser is seen as malevolent when it is usually used as a "nonfatal" alternative to the much less impressive (at least to Ponies) gun. It is really cool watching the ponies fiddle with and try to figure out human things and I cannot wait until we really get moving on that front.
Hehehehe. You don't even know Twilight.
This feel rather apt. Waiting to see who she explodes upon is half the game. The fact that the doctors gave her back her possessions (including her gun and ammo) make it even more nail biting. Personally I think that she is like a batch of nitroglycerin. She is very unstable and once someone jars her slightly she's gonna lose it. I bet shes gonna shoot some dumb griffin.
. . . a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.- Carl Sagan
This little moment between Lyra and Dale is my favorite in the whole story. It really hammers home how far Dale and the ponies have come to chat with one another.
I really like how we're finally getting to see the realization begin to set in for some of the Humans. Moller, Richter and Dale are the first to begin to realize how groundbreaking the entire situation is. It is a real stark contrast to the almost routine way (with some minor hiccups) the Ponies are handling everything. It is like they don't even realize magnitude of the distance they can travel, the implications of what they have accomplished! It is both heartwarming and infuriating. They can go millions upon millions of miles to visit another planet and what do they do with it? A short trip for Celestia to wake up to our sun! The almost trivial use of such power is like a slap in the face to everything we'd like to accomplish.
Really liked the scene with the strand of Celestia's hair. I'd probably be grabbing a bottle after that revelation as well
Going to be interesting to see how those two go from there. Good idea to try and compartmentalize to try and keep hold of the inevitable storm beuracratic you what hitting the proverbial fan. Will be fun to see how successful they are, or if they end up in a pair of very long sleeved white coats.
Good that Dale is thinking about the blow up that might happen with Kate once she's coherent enough to realize and process what's happened... Not to mention be able to remember it for more than a few minutes at a stretch I'll bet.
I remember once when a surgeon kinda screwed the pooch a bit on me, boy do those big gun painkillers Swiss cheese the ol memory on top of all the other effects.
a really good chapter but that last bit “Don't tell Kate,” those three words carry so much power for the hole chapter just amazing.
Harts Fire
5695144
We're right on the edge of a breakthrough for all parties involved in the story.
5695174
Well, it didn't really surprise anypony that Twilight travelled through time, or that Pinkie could create clones of herself, or that there are spells that teleport you into fully-realized fictional realms. Just distance is pretty trivial.
Surviving vacuum, now that'd be impressive to ponies.
5695174
You'll find out very soon.
I've touched on this in Sam and Rose--what concept do the ponies have of underwear?
Ambrosia, like many ponies of her age, is illiterate.
He's got his doubts, but he's not willing to call it just yet. After all, the one point in the ponies favor is that they made it to Earth, and we haven't got the technology to get to their planet. Still, he's no fool; the evidence is piling up, but he's not quite ready to make firm conclusions. Once the language barrier is knocked down, he'll be able to get more positive answers to some of his questions.
This has actually been the topic of a lot of discussion between pre-readers, editors, and other interested parties, going back for years (literally!). How do you prove aliens? When does the preponderance of evidence leave a rational person with no other reasonable conclusion?
I am indebted to P. T. Deutermann, a retired FBI agent turned novelist, who has written some very compelling procedural novels. While he never dealt with this particular topic, he covered the dichotomy of federal agents wanting to solve the case, and wanting to avoid making their bosses unhappy.
Our world is just as far beyond their comprehension as theirs is to us. Fundamental cultural truths aren't as universal as either party believes, after all.
Poor Kate's got just about every single risk factor for a serious mental breakdown stacked up against her right now. The morphine's preventing her from fully processing just what's going on, but once she gets weaned off the painkillers, she's going to be smacked in the face with a hard dose of new reality, and that's not a good place to be.
And that's from our own solar system. In the universe at large, we don't rate that highly.
They're rather blase to the idea of what their magic can accomplish, and of course they had centuries of experience dealing with other sapient species. On the other hand, the things we can do with science are just as foreign to them--Allie would have a hard time understanding how easily her woodcarving skills could be replaced by a machine; jumbo jets, or even modern supermarkets are as foreign to the ponies as magic is to us.
Foreshadowing, Hmmmmm??
The slow blade penetrates the shield.
I really like how a similar explanation given in Arrow 18 looks to be holding here.
You wouldnt beleive the multiple layers of encoding and sequencing I had to come up with to get what I could call as a half decent communication device.
Every detectives desk comes with a built in bottle of scotch holder.
I suspect there isnt really a store called Desks and Alcohol.
5695222
The closest my personal experience can come is seeing a second moon once (a clock tower happened to look just like the moon), and while it didn't take me too long to figure it out, there was a moment where my brain just went into bluescreen mode. You're not alone--if I saw a hair start to change colors on its own, I'd be looking for the nearest bottle, too.
Heck, they're the ones who are going to get off easy as time goes on. It's going to be a gang of scientists who makes the right connections, and then goes off on a week-long bender before sending their report back to Moller and Richter.
The surgeon who put my finger back together claimed that there'd be no scarring, and that it would be as good as new when he was done. Both were complete lies. Still, I can type with it, and I guess for y'all who read my stuff, that's all you really care about.
And I suppose having a sort-of working finger is better than not having it at all.
5695231
Thank you!
5695561
Maybe. At least, we all know how the wings thing turns out.
One thing I've personally obverved are cut-resistant gloves. They are not stab-proof--one of my co-workers wore one with a pretty good-sized bloodstain on it. Every defensive mechanism has its particular weakness: something it was never designed to handle.
5695573
Arrow 18 was one of the influential works in this story.
Should be standard.
If there isn't, there ought to be.
5695523
You mentioned that in one of the side stories, I still wish to see their side of the conversations. Half the fun is seeing how the ponies react to the human stuff and this chapter was a little heavy on the human side of the language barrier. That is not a bad thing!
I honestly feel for Trixie at this stage. She's no less imprisoned in Luna's home than in that cell, and in some ways the basic situation is worse. Nobody except Luna and those loyal to Luna even know she is there.
As to Twilight? Be careful, lil' pony.
5695646
There's a high likelihood that you'll see more conversations from working ponies in the future. As a blue-collar worker myself, I'm all about the hooves-on mare.
To my mind, a good first-contact story looks on both sides of the contact. You're right that this chapter focused more on the human side of things; other chapters focus more on the ponies. Good balance is all.
5695174
Dramatic irony is best irony.
But really, the barbs in a taser ARE malevolent. They're sharp bits of metal obviously designed to pierce flesh and cause injury. To someone without our cultural contexts, that's ALL they are. Similarly, a gun is just an odd-shaped hunk of metal.
I guarantee that if someone took Kate's sidearm and made a hole in the ground in front of someone like, say, Twilight, Fancy Pants, or Luna, ponies would start treating it with the same level respect that they'd give a spear or spell. If they didn't lock it up outright.
Dale would probably look at a stunning spell the same way Twilight's looking at those barbs.
Another amazing chapter, as usual.:D
The formatting of the conversation between Moller and Richter sort of bugs me. It feels disjointed, making it a bit hard to track the flow.
Also:
Huzzah! A new chapter!
Things are coming to a head; I will be eagerly awaiting the next chapter. 
Onto the blog!
It'll be interesting to see where this leads up to.
I'm scratching my head as to why Trixie is still relevant, save for perhaps breaking down and destroying things later. I'm kinda hoping Kate doesn't hurt anyone when she inevitably flips out. Right now, I'm straddling the line between pity and annoyance at her continuing obliviousness.
But honestly, the promise of more political and technological shenanigans on the Equestrian side keeps me reading. And part of me really wants to see Twilight with a beginner's electronics book and a guard that makes sure she sleeps occasionally.
So... Luna and Trixie are trying to usurp the throne? Does this plan require Twilight to sprout wings? How many more chapters till the planet Namek explodes?
Yeah, no shit.
5696107 Ya, I kind of wish she wasn't in the story.
Are these "thaumic waves" the same thing as radio waves? Or are they something else entirely? I'm not sure if explaining radio waves as "long light" would make sense to the ponies though.
Did.... Did my comment influence something in the story!? If so, I am honored. If no, then that is one strange coincidence!
Good chapter, looks like things are starting to fall into place. The Rogue Wolf pointed it out and I agree that the conversation between Moller and Richter were a bit disjointed. I think at one point Richter had like three full paragraphs of dialogue in a row, but the way it was formatted was hard to tell.
My only gripe is the Trixie scenes. IMO, they feel out of place and kind of detract from the flow of the story. I understand she is probably going to play a big role later on and you need to set the stage for it, but every time her sections come up I just want it to get back to Dale and the others. I enjoy reading about what the detectives, griffons, and every other pony (like Fancy Pants) are doing, but just not Trixie. I think it's in part because I can see how everything is relevant to Dale's and Kathryn's situation, but can't say the same about Trixie. At the moment, it feels like her scenes belong with the Pony Planet: Side Stories...story.
5696107 My guess? Trixie will end up being Kate's "guide", the way Lyrra is Dale's.
I'm kind of wondering whether the FBI agents will be able to find a way to get hold of Kate or not. There's no signalling method known to humanity which is faster than the speed of light, so even if they managed to get a message to her walkie-talkie, it would be on a few centuries' delay...
It'd be different if they managed to find some way to route a signal via Celestia's hair instantly to Celestia. (I can't help but imagine Celestia somehow hearing both sides of the conversation in her head, but unable to respond or even identify where the voices are coming from...)
"Diaper?"
Now comes the challenge: How do you say "A garment that reduces abrasion and chafing" in simple, common words..?
It could be bad enough trying to explain clothing to ponies. How do you explain clothing that protects you from your clothing?
Maybe he could just demonstrate rubbing his hand across his trouser leg and saying "rough", then rubbing his hand across the spare pair of underwear and saying, "soft" if he has those words. I'm sure Lyra would get the idea eventually.
Now that I think of it...
If dale has two pair of underwear, he shouldn't have to wear the same pair for two days. He can just wash one every day as I've done while camping. I'll guess he's had other things on his mind, though, and hasn't settled into any sort of routine. Seems legit.
5695523
This really wouldn't be a binary state, on morphine and off morphine. I haven't taken morphine, but I have taken mind-altering drugs that made me say and think very weird things, and I still had a grip on reality. Such a prolonged, consistent experience, with the morphine beginning to wear off, would seem to Kate to be a lot less like a dream or a hallucination, and with the clarity of thought she's displaying here, I would expect her to be sobering up, if not chemically, then mindset-wise.
I was so frustrated, I thought that the hair might have died permanently, but thank god it rejuvenated or they looked longer or whatever.
Trixie is back, yay.
For some reasom I thought about first parts of "Shine on you crazy diamond" as a good soundtrack to this part.
And... was it the Dale's astronomy book?
5695174
Actually, (as far as I remember) Dale unloaded the gun and hid cartriges under a mattress in the hospital. They never have been mentioned since.
5698954
The hospital staff found them. They had an argument over whether to return them to Kate or send them to Canterlot. We haven't seen them being given back to Kate but it was implied that they would be returned to her. So they are likely in her reach or will soon be.
I love that 'oh shit' moment he had when he saw Celestia's hair change color. And... wait, the bubble also disrupted communications. So it's magic, not just Celestia's godliness. Which is a pretty good explanation as to why they don't have certain technologies on their world.
I also can't wait to see the shitstorm when Dale eventually returns to Earth. Eventually.
It's not like the ponies live in a world where spears, weapons designed to kill, are used, or where in the past they've been in 'conflict' and chased by living ice ages, or how a stone's throw from their nation's capital is a forest filled with wildlife that can kill you by eye contact.
5695666
That's not entirely true; she can leave whenever she wants (so long as it isn't by jumping off the balcony), although she of course risks re-capture by the Royal Guard if she does so--which, admittedly, doesn't exactly make it a choice.
5695829
Totally agree. The cultural expectations are very different in a lot of ways between the ponies and humans.
5695839
Thanks!
5699125 No prob.^^
5696765
The only reason I haven't is because only a quarter of OPP readers read the side stories.
5695936 5696765
It's possible that the scene worked better in my head that it did on paper. Yes, Moller and Richter both had fairly long monologues rather than a conversation, and I can see how that might have been difficult to follow--I'll look back and see if maybe some action tags might make it a little bit clearer without breaking up the flow too much.
5696107
You'll find out.
You know if/when a permanent portal is made, Twilight will want all the books pushed through it. That guard's going to have his hooves full.
5696692
Very similar, yes. That's why Celestia's hair messes up certain radio frequencies
5696701
Yes, it was your comment about the fingernail clippers.
5697027
Your guess is very close.
5697405
Actually, only about 52 years. If the signal were strong enough, and focused enough (and if the batteries in Kate's radio held out), she might even get the message. Of course, she's have no way to radio back. . . .
5697871
Or protects your clothing from you . . . in one of my other stories, a human has to explain underwear to Rarity, and also later to Rose (on more than one occasion; Rose doesn't quite get it).
That's true, or he can wear each pair for two days and then launder them (if he's not doing a lot of physical exercise, they shouldn't get too dirty in two days). Of course, he's going to be stuck doing it the old-fashioned way. Even Rarity doesn't have a washing machine.