The Travels of Trivial Knowledge

by CCC

Dead Planet, Part I

Captain Swift Wing fell from the sky, green trailing behind her wings and vanishing as she dropped from the atmosphere's upper layer. The strong winds of the lower layer slammed into her body as she dropped, and we were forced to run to keep up.

It was Magic Surge who caught the Captain, holding Swift Wing with her telekinesis and gently lowering her to the ruined alien street, ignoring the sample container that bounced across the cobbles some distance away.

The Captain looked up at the four of us and wheezed.

“What?”asked Fine Control, leaning closer. “Did you say some-”

Trivial Knowledge grabbed Fine with his telekinesis, pulling her back.

“Careful!” he said. He pointed at the Captain's mouth; there was a slight greenish tinge in the air the Captain was breathing out. “It's probably not a good idea to breathe that in,” Trivial said, “given what it's already done to the Captain.”

Swift Wing took in a deep breath, a great greedy gulp of air, and expelled it in a giant burst of green. It faded quickly, but covered quite an area around her before it did.

Everyone else backed off, keeping away from the cloud of green.

“What's happened to the Captain?” asked Fine Control, nervously.

“Some sort of mind-controlling gas?” suggested Magic Surge. “Wanting nothing more than to spread and take us over?”

“Don't be ridiculous,” said Healthy Growth, firmly.

* * *

The world had seemed innocent, on first approach a mere two hours before.

“Target is in motion.” warned Fine Control.

The three unicorns stood around the pillar that formed the core of the flutter-teleport spell matrix, their horn touching their individual interface sigils. Off to the side, Healthy Growth and Captain Swift Wing watched, quietly.

“In motion?” asked Healthy Growth, quietly.

“Some worlds travel around their sun, instead of allowing the sun to travel around the world.” replied Captain Swift Wing, just as quietly. “This is one of those worlds.”

After a brief pause, the Captain added “I do hope you have some remedy for motion sickness, we might need it in a few minutes.”

“Suitable teleport destination located.” said Fine Control, ignoring the quiet conversation. “It's in motion, but relatively slowly. Targeting spell... Magic, Trivial, if you can give as much power as you can in three, two, one, now!”

Everything went momentarily white as Magic Surge dropped all her power into the flutter-teleport matrix; and then there was a thump as the Friendship settled down, for the first time, upon the surface of a truly alien world.

It was accompanied by a tremendous howling.

“Does that sound like timberwolves to you?” asked Magic Surge, nervously.

“It sounds like the wind to me.” said Captain Swift Wing. “It's blowing a gale out there. Talk to me, Fine. Where are we?”

“Captain, the planet isn't just moving around its sun, it's also spinning on its own axis.” said Fine Control. “I put us down on the axis of that rotation; from here, the planet is turning under us, but at a constant rate; the only motion we need to worry about is the motion of the planet around its sun, which will be constant. I thought that this would give us the best chance to get used to it, Captain.”

Captain Swift Wing nodded. “Good thinking, Fine. The spinning's noticeable, but not enough to disorientate us.” She clapped her front hooves, and added, “Well, here we are. Who's going to be the first to step out onto the surface of a brand new world?”

* * *

As it happened, the first to set hoof to the ground of the new world was Healthy Growth. Before long, however, the rest of us had also stepped out onto the dusty surface of the world. Wind blew from our right-hand side, causing clouds of dust to engulf Healthy's muscular body. He stomped a couple of times, and peered closely at the ground.

“I don't think there's much growing here,” he said, “nor can I feel any water nearby. It seems we've landed in some sort of desert; there's some regular shapes on the ground, which might be the remains of badly eroded houses; the air's very dry, and I can't see any greenery anywhere.”

“That's because all the green is up there.” Captain Swift Wing pointed up, to the sky above our heads; the brilliant, emerald-green sky, in which the distant sun on the left-hand horizon was nothing more than a dim glow in the murky green.

“What is that green stuff?” asked Fine Control.

“I don't know,” said Captain Swift Wing, “but before we leave, I'd like to get a sample. Trivial, go get the sampling jars, would you? Everypony else, feel free to have a look around, but don't go too far from the Friendship.”

* * *

“Whoever they were,” said Captain Swift Wing after a brief hour's investigation of the ruined city, “they were slightly larger than ponies, developed a civilisation, but died out several hundred years ago.” She looked out over the heavily eroded walls. “Does anyone have any idea why?”

“Tidal lock, Captain.”

“Thank you, Trivial Knowledge.” The Captain nodded, just once. “Now, would you care to explain that in more detail?”

“Ah... sorry, Captain. It's because this planet travels around the Sun, instead of vice versa. See, over time, an object that orbits another, more massive object will adjust its spin until it keeps the same face toward the larger object all the time. It can take millions of years, but it's inevitable in the end. And, see, the Sun hasn't moved in the sky since we got here. And once this happens, the planet becomes almost entirely uninhabitable; one side becomes so hot that the ground melts, the other no doubt ends up so cold that the air freezes. Only in the twilight zone in the middle – right here – are temperatures conducive to life.”

“I see,” nodded Captain Swift Wing. “But why not develop a line of cities along the twilight zone?”

“Because it would be a line, Captain,” replied Trivial. “Any city needs to be sustained by a certain amount of farmland; if it all needs to be maintained linearly, then the average distance that the produce needs to travel is increased. It might be possible to survive like that... but I imagine it would be a very fragile type of life. The first problem to crop up would likely be a species-ending disaster. And if they didn't have the power to move their own sun, then they were no doubt unable to deal with any of a number of potential disasters.”

“I see,” nodded Captain Swift Wing. “So it all comes down to their inability to control their own sun, then?”

“Yes,” nodded Trivial Knowledge. “No species can survive in the long term without being able to control their own sun.”

“But the presence of this city does show that a species can develop without that ability,” pointed out Healthy Growth.

“In the interval before the planet becomes tidally locked,” nodded Trivial Knowledge.

“I see,” said the Captain, spreading her wings and picking up one of the sampling containers. “Well, I'm going to head up and get a sample of that green stuff up there. Could be interesting, whatever it is.”

The Captain flew up, expertly holding herself against the strong, ground-level winds as she climbed near-vertically through the air. She opened the sample container, and flew up into the green; and was instantly flung to the side, as the winds in the upper atmosphere blew unexpectedly in the opposite direction to the winds in the lower atmosphere.

She recovered quickly, however, and sealed the sample container shut with some of the green air inside it.

However, the Captain seemed to be having some trouble; her wing-beats slowed, then stopped, and she fell from the sky, dropping like a stone.

Comments

[yrfoxtaur]

so, this isn't earth, obviously, because having the Moon means Earth will not lock to the sun before the sun fries it. or so I have read

still, a curious development

[CCC]

3913556

It's not Earth. That would be a level of fictional recursion that I don't think I'd like to attempt just at the moment.