Myou've Gotta be Kidding Me

by DataPacRat

Rain, Rain, and More Rain

When I woke up, it was raining. And hot. And damp. And raining some more. (In fact, you can pretty much assume it was raining the whole time we were anywhere near that rainforest, even if I forget to mention it from time to time. My glasses were either fogged or streaked, my coat was soaked and dripping, towels required extra effort to get dry for their next use (and before they started getting moldy), papers had to be weighted to keep from curling up, and so on and so forth.)

I saw the wireless was where I'd left it, so wandered out onto the deck (only partially sheltered from the rain by the balloon). I leaned over the railing to get a good look down, at the trees, trees, and more trees we were gliding over. I thought a bit about the last few days - sure, I'd made a discovery which had the potential for changing the face of Equestria, and/or giving the Dairy a tactical, if not strategic, advantage over every possible opposing interest group... but it wasn't really like me to go on a days-long, monomaniacal sleepless project-binge. The closest parallel I was able to think of... was when Twilight snapped after the parasprite invasion or was about to miss her deadline letter; or when Applejack tried to harvest the whole orchard by herself; and, of course, Pinkie went a bit off her rocker when she thought everypony forgot her birthday, and Fluttershy occasionally raged, and Rarity had her histrionics...

... now that I was looking at it, there seemed to be a certain tendency to unbalanced insanities in the Bearers of the Elements of Harmony. If I wanted to be able to keep my own priorities straight, maybe I should try putting that necklace right back where I found it. Assuming that would change anything - I didn't even know if I was a 'Bearer', let alone if I could stop being one if I tried. Trying to find out any such important little details was, after all, what I was hoping to accomplish with this little jaunt.

A gust of wind sent a patter of rain droplets across the deck and over me, and I found myself starting to sing...

What does it matter if rain comes your way
and raindrops patter along?

The rain descending should not make you blue
The happy ending is waiting for you

Take your share of trouble, face it and don't complain
If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain.

Happiness comes double after a little pain
If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain.

What if your love affair should break up,
as they sometimes will
When you kiss and make up, boy what a thrill!

Sadness ends in gladness, showers are not in vain
If you want the rainbow, you must have the rain.

Look for brighter weather, oh watch for the Sun again
If you want the rainbow then you must have the rain.

Pull yourself together, whistle a happy strain
If you want the rainbow then you must have the rain.

So if your lucky star deserts you, and if shadows fall
Even though it hurts you, laugh through it all

Be a cheerful loser, you have the world to gain
If you want the rainbow, why, you just must have the rain.

That's all!

Red's voice popped up from behind me. "You done?", she asked, in a tone dryer than anything else in the area.

"Er," I blushed a little, "I think so," not just referring to the singing. "How bad was I?"

"Right up to that last bit, not too bad. Had to prod you to get you to eat enough, but you didn't seem to mind whatever we did, as long as you could keep on doing your... whatever. We kinda thought you were just being, well, you, with your secret projects and all that."

We watched a flock of giant, feathery mosquito-things, bigger than robins, circling around above a pond. "Maybe I should have brought my psychologist along."

"Eh, I'm sure she can take all the time you need to fix your head once we get back."

I was about to correct Red's assumption of my p-doc's gender, then decided it didn't matter. "I give you my advance permission to tie me to a bed whenever you feel you need to." Red coughed, which made me snort. "If that's what you're thinking, there's a certain pony in Canterlot who would want to have very cross words with you if you tried." I paused, then added, for honesty's sake, "At least, without asking her first."

Red coughed some more, which is likely what covered up other sounds, for I was suddenly thwacked right between the horns. Amethyst glared down at me. "For. Being. Silly," she explained.

"Yeah, I probably deserved that. I, uh, didn't do anything... that is, the pups are all alright, right?"

Amethyst saved words by simply nodding. Red filled in, "You didn't really play with 'em much, but kept 'em well-fed."

"I remember that much, at least, I think." It seemed a bit weird to me that it didn't seem all that weird that I was a sort of wet-nurse. Of course, I was a cow in a flying airship talking to a pegasus and a bipedal dog, and I'd just spent a few days inventing electronic circuits which were physically impossible on Earth... so my weirdness-meter was probably gone all to Tartarus and back anyway. After a few moments of companionable silence, "I think," I said, "I'm going to get something to eat - and then," I looked at Red, "are you up to seeing if me going insane for a bit resulted in something useful?"

"Eh," she shrugged, "the weather's not great for my flight feathers, but it's what you pay me for, right?"

---

Turned out the twin wireless sets kept on transmitting pulse-codes to each other as far as Red was willing to fly from the Alicorn - a few miles, at least - with no sign of any signal fade.

I wasn't sure if I could adapt the circuits I'd built for actual voice - modulating a carrier-wave was significantly more complex than simply turning that carrier-wave on and off - but even this much was... a lot more than I'd hoped to accomplish. Even if the magic-charge on the sapphires did fade out in the middle of our testing, rendering both units useless until they recharged... and I didn't have any intention of using my own finite reserves to charge the things while we were outside Equestria, at least not unless I had to.

"Say, I haven't seen Micro since I got up - what's she doing?"

"Sleeping," Red answered. "While you were building these, she was going over her uncle's papers, plotting our course, and generally keeping in charge of the crew."

"Remind me to have bonuses get paid all around, once we're back in Canterlot. And when she wakes up... unicorns can recharge light-diamonds, right?"

"Who else can?"

"Think a 'corn might be able to recharge the sapphires?"

"One way to find out, isn't there?"

---

Once Micro was back among the living - yep, she was able to pour some magical energy into the sapphires, and it only took five tries for her to be able to focus it all into just one sapphire of a super-diode pair and not the other. Once she had that - she was able to keep a wireless set in one room going continuously, until the one in another room ran out. If I'd thought to bring a second unicorn along, so each one could keep a wireless set's super-diode powered continuously... then we just might have been able to keep both sets working indefinitely.

(In case I haven't been clear on this point, I should probably note that the magic-power wasn't being used for the actual transmitting - the wireless set used ordinary, non-magical batteries for that. No actual power was needed to receive the signal, or to power the ear-phones; what the magic-power was powering was the single piece of equipment which transformed the wireless signal received by the antenna into a different sort of signal which the ear-phones could turn into sound-waves. The wireless boxes we were currently experimenting with took advantage of the magical super-diode's amplification to make the buzzing easily audible. If I was willing to go back to the trial-and-error method of matching crystal against crystal, I might be able to find that something other than sapphires would last longer for a given magical charge, or I might even find an Equestrian version of an ordinary diode which didn't require any magical power at all - but this was the one functioning system I'd been able to find so far, so it was the one we were trying.)

---

Micro was taking care of navigation, and every time she went off to check our course, she seemed less happy. I asked about it, and she said, "I think Blueblood got gypped in the repairs. We not only keep drifting from our course, but that drift is getting worse and worse - at first it was just a fraction of a degree more than could be accounted for by wind and instrument tolerances, but now, when I checked our course, we were a whole five degrees from what I set us to. If this keeps up, the next time I go look, we'll have drifted further. Annoyingly, it's not even the same direction each time - half the time we're drifting to port, half to starboard. It's taking more and more effort to keep heading directly towards the target location you indicated... I'm expecting that something is going to break outright and have to be repaired."

"Do we have the tools and materials?"

"As long as the gasbag's envelope stays intact, we should, and there's no sign of anything wrong with that."

I thought about it. "Maybe it's not the ship. Ponies don't come this way too often, but they do wander around every now and then... and there's no sign on any pony-drawn map of anything near where we're going."

"So?"

"So... maybe ponies getting too close are... pushed. Nudged away. If they weren't specifically aiming for our target coordinates, they may not have even noticed."

"Do you think someone's trying to keep us out?"

"I... don't know. Maybe it's a natural phenomenon - well, as natural as things get on this planet." I frowned. "Safety first - we do have children aboard. But, while keeping us safe - see how close we can get."

---

'As close as we can get' turned out to be 'about five miles'. At that point, if the Alicorn were pointed precisely in a certain direction, it moved slower and slower, as if heading into a strengthening headwind, until it stopped; but just a slight turn either way, and it would slide sideways, until it was aimed elsewhere. It wasn't like a hard force-field, but still wasn't letting us make any headway in the air. So the rest of our investigation would have to be on the ground. I was going, of course - and I was going to wear the Elements necklace, and bring along all my usual assortment of gizmos and tricks. The pups weren't coming, which meant Amethyst was also staying. The crew were staying. Micro and Red went back and forth a bit, until they finally played a pony version of rock-scissors-paper. Red won (or possibly lost - I didn't ask) - so she was coming down with me. She'd also carry one of the wireless sets, to send back reports on our progress, so there would be some record of how far we got if we were eaten by grues before we made it back.

The tree canopy was far too thick to be sure of a safe landing by parachute, so I once again found myself being dangled by rope, like a worm on a fishing line, while Red casually flew around and around and around...

---

I later had it on very good authority that around this time, Cheerilee was occasionally heard to sing to herself when she didn't think anyone was around, such as this number...

When night is creepin'
And I should be sleepin' in bed
If you were peepin'
You'd find that I'm weepin' instead

My lovin' Missy left her filly again
Said she'd come back but she forgot to say when

Night after night, I'm cryin'
Missy, won't you please come home?
Missy won't you please come home?
I'm so lonesome

No one can fill that vacant chair
Home isn't home when you're not there
No need to knock, the door is open for you
Please, Missy

Even the clock keeps tickin'
Missy won't you please come home?
Missy do you have to roam so very long?
There's lots of other fillies who would like to be foolin'
Haven't slipped yet, but I'm liable to droolin'
Missy, Missy, won't you please come home?

Please, daddy
Even the clock keeps tickin'
Missy won't you please come home?
Missy do you have to roam so very long?
There's lots of other fillies who would like to be foolin'
Haven't slipped yet, but I'm liable to droolin'
Missy, Missy, won't you please come home?
That's all

Comments

[Forevermore]

Missy's going to meet Terra? She should ask about the threesome

[DataPacRat]

979638
This is a bit of a spoiler, so I'll try to put it in white:
Missy's visiting the area about six months before Twigleaf appears.

[Salacar]

Poor Cheerilee

[JadeCriminal]

I reiterate: Story = amusing

For comparison I stopped reading the only other rationality story I know of (HP) because it got stupid.

Once more picking out a cow? Brilliant idea.

One thing that makes me wonder: How come HiE characters don't question their sudden, romantic, xenofilia.

[DataPacRat]

981395
For comparison I stopped reading the only other rationality story I know of (HP) because it got stupid.

Really? Hunh; I've still got it on my 'ping me the minute it updates' newsfeed list.

One thing that makes me wonder: How come HiE characters don't question their sudden, romantic, xenofilia.

In Missy's case, it's partly due to the sci-fi/furry idea of 'mindkind' being a more useful category to deal with than 'mankind' ; having spent enough time in the nudist's paradise of Equestria to start getting used to the idea of all these quadrupeds being people regardless of how they might be shaped ; not having had enough personal experience with romance back on Earth to know what is and isn't usual ; and Cheerilee and she being shoved into each other's hooves by magic music, which seems to her to have simply pushed things faster than they might have gone otherwise.

[AliCentaur Br0ny]

982140 Good point. I tried it and it didn't work. Maybe she can teach me how to do it while she's at it.dl.dropbox.com/u/31471793/FiMFiction/Pinkie_Pie_lolface.png I'd love to be able to tell physics to shove it on occasion, and actually have it listen to me.

982162 Good for you, Jerk. I ended up turning off my laptop and finally going to bed sometime around 5:40ish A.M. (I think) after reading the first 13 chapters in a row.: Morning light and birdsong are not things that help me fall asleep.ajsleepy:

[mitchboy]

Who are the main cast?