G5.05: Marked by Harmony
But as it turned out, they couldn’t. Olivia didn’t respond to her suggestion that a team should be sent, except to say that “There won’t be one ready for six months. I’ll put a pin in your suggestion until then.”
Her clone was even less helpful. “We’re too busy building to go anywhere. This isn’t why I signed up.”
The rest of their search that day turned up nothing useful—if there had ever been paint or other exterior writing on the ruins, it had long since worn off. There were no reachable controls, nothing aside from the tracks and an opening between the wall and the bottom that might permit gearing.
So, they flew back, and went back to their lives. Nothing bad had happened to their belongings, or to them. Equestria was a safe place, so long as the ones hunting you didn’t know where you lived.
But safety wasn’t always the same as being happy.
A few weeks later, and Lucky finished scanning the paper version of her book into the computation surface.
Lucky stared down at the computer, at her desk covered with pages of increasingly-legible English text written with quills of her own feathers. Dozens of Equestrian texts had been cannibalized in the production of this one book, written all over with her notes and theories as she read them. Her guide wouldn’t be enough to converse in meaningful ways with pony scientists on technical subjects. It wouldn’t bridge translation where none made sense, such as the dozens of different words for friendship, or the distinct lack of words for less kind feelings.
But it would be enough to get humanity started. Enough to train diplomats who could learn technical language as needed by asking. It was a foundation other linguists could build on.
Lucky was alone in the apartment as she celebrated her victory. Lightning Dust had taken to working late the last few weeks, though she hadn’t said why. It was all right—Lucky hadn’t gotten herself lost on the way home for weeks now, and she knew all the flying patterns to keep from getting a ticket.
It even helped, since not having Dust around meant she had more time to finish her book. Enough time that now she’d finished writing it, finished scanning it, finished her entire reason for being born.
“Computer,” she said, staring down at the computation surface. “Please read me the terms of mission completion for crew member G3.01 James Irwin.” The longer she spent without speaking English, the stranger it felt—how long would it take to lose fluency? For someone who wasn’t an expert with alien languages, probably much sooner than it would’ve for her.
“Produce a scalable guide to translation for the language of alien species #FF35E. Reproduce that guide through means written, verbal, or in-person. Optional mission directives in order of importance: 1. Do not formally announce the SPS, its missions, its location, or its technology. 2. Do not allow alien species #FF35E or any of its related cousins to discover the presence of the Forerunner. 3. Become expert in the technical and specialist forms of communication, if any. 4. Return alive to Landfall to teach this language to successive generations.”
It had been months since Lucky had re-read her mission, and about nine months since she’d seen it for the first time on the day of her birth. Surviving is only priority 4. Never noticed that before.
“That means… my mission would be complete if I, say, sent the guide. Instead of delivering it in person?”
“Affirmative.”
“Even if I didn’t return to help with teaching?”
“Affirmative. Your personal intervention in teaching other fabricated explorers is no longer required. A member of another generation can accomplish that function if you are destroyed prior to your return.”
Lucky Break sat back on her chair, stretching out her wings. She looked over the apartment. The two of them had arrived here with almost nothing, so almost every object had a story. Pictures of the two of them together in black-and-white were everywhere—visiting every scenic location in the city, taking the official castle tour, visiting the petting zoo, watching the jousting. Lucky’s grades had been pinned to a special board along with some of her assignments.
There was their single, shared bed in the corner of the room, a mess of second-hand blankets scattered with greenish and yellowish feathers (neither of them was very keen on making it). There were a few images from Dust’s own past, newspapers clipped from a time long ago, where she’d been ‘The Success Story of Las Pegasus’ and ‘The Best Young Flyer in Las Pegasus.’ But the longer they lived together, the more these old memories were pushed aside.
Lucky had no printer to make physical copies of all her old files. Even so, she’d found she hadn’t even opened the data she’d brought with her from Earth, not in over a month. There was no sense looking at those old places and people, all long dead. None of them had felt very close compared to her new friends in Equestria.
I accomplished my mission. I can go back to the Forerunner and be a teacher. This is why I was created. This was why I worked so hard to get into the Pioneering Society, why I was willing to clone myself. Somehow, she didn’t imagine the James Irwin of Earth had a very happy ending. His life hadn’t been that great.
I could go back, but I don’t want to. “Suppose I accomplished my mission now. What would happen?” She had known the formality of it once, since it was in the Pioneering Society handbook. But it had been even longer since she’d looked at the handbook.
“You become a private citizen of the new colony of Earth. Free to contract yourself with the society for future missions. Additional study is likely to emerge from the field of your creation, linguistics. Future missions could be refused at your discretion. You cease to be a segment of Forerunner 70a-fe3-1d1-98f-b4c-aa0. Dr. James Irwin would no longer be supported by the Forerunner, though he could retain the use of all equipment and resources as presently fabricated.”
One command to send that book, and I’m free. Free to leave, do what I want… and not to get their help. It would be difficult, but possible, for her to get the Forerunner’s help up here. She still might need it.
“How much longer do I have to complete my mission?”
“Mission of Dr. James Irwin is considered failed upon two years subjective local time. One year, two months, thirteen days remain of that interval.”
Two years had felt like a painfully short window when she first heard it. Something truly alien should take much longer to translate, if it could be translated at all. But Equestrian wasn’t that alien, really. It had all the same parts of speech, the same concepts of formality and tense and direction and time. It might even fit into the standard family of Indo-European languages, though she wasn’t sure about that. It was getting hard to remember abstract academic information she no longer used.
James picked up her guitar with one leg, scooping it into the space in front of her and starting to strum with her wings. It no longer hurt, though it seemed like it should. Her wings were used to the abuse. If anything, her flying practice had made all this easier, since the same levels of precision were required for complex maneuvers as might be needed for a specific chord.
Lucky played herself a relaxing lullaby on her guitar. She played, and she sung, and she thought about what she would do with her life. I have a whole pony lifetime in front of me now. Where will I spend it?
Lucky Break’s mind began to drift. She let it happen, relaxing into that unfocused state she used whenever she was studying. Unfocused, but alert. Her wings moved perfectly now, not missing a single note. She found herself tapping her hooves against the guitar, as she’d seen humans do long ago to simulate the effects of percussion. Hooves had an even better sound.
Lucky Break played her guitar, not with the skill of a hobbyist who couldn’t afford anything better, not with the clumsiness of an alien wearing a body she wasn’t made for. She played like a native with thousands of years of experience and a near-infinite well of songs. She stopped playing the Beatles, and started playing a melody no human ears had ever heard.
She wasn’t even looking. Lucky opened her eyes, and saw Lightning Dust was standing in the doorway, watching her. She’d dropped a bag of takeout onto the floor, and her mouth was hanging open. She was crying.
“W-where did you… h-hear…”
Lucky was singing a simple lullaby, the sort a pegasus mother might sing to her frightened foal. She sung about clouds, and sunsets, and swimming in rainbows. She sang like she’d played the song a million times before.
Then she looked down, and realized she was flying. How she could be doing that while playing with her wings, she couldn’t guess. What’s that warm feeling? It started in her wingtips, but it had spread. Spread to her head, and her flanks most of all.
Then it started to burn. Hotter than the time she’d accidentally grabbed a wrench sitting on her van’s engine block, hotter than any sunburn or fierce July afternoon. She stopped singing and started to scream.
Lucky jerked forward out of the air as though she’d just been pushed off a high-dive, smacking face-first onto the hardwood floor. Compared to the burning, the impact was nothing.
She started to scream. She struggled and kicked against something, but she couldn’t tell what it was. Then the agony became so intense that rational thought was impossible, and her mind dissolved into a sea of white.
Dr. James Irwin dreamed, or something very like it.
Her body became a distant memory in an endless sea of stars. They all watched her, staring through to the eternal dream that was her brief existence.
Lucky Break did not think she was alone in that void, though to call what watched her there “minds” was being far too generous to herself. It was as though she was being observed by nature itself, an unmeasurable presence she passed within. A presence which could know every instant of her existence more perfectly than she had.
There were no words for her to understand, just the hallucinations born of a fevered mind. Lucky thought she saw thousands of years passing in blinks of time—felt the loss of a being beyond her ability to understand.
Lucky Break felt it, more a force than a being, as it permeated every cell, every memory. It knew her, and didn’t hate.
Then she started breathing again.
Lucky Break woke up slowly. She still burned all over, and any movement brought searing pain to swollen joints. Even her over-engineered body was overwhelmed with whatever damage had been done to her. It took effort to breathe, more than it should.
She managed to open her eyes, then pushed herself weakly into a sitting position. “Ughhhh,” she moaned. “That was… the worst.”
She wasn’t at home. The room all around her was crystal, with pony medical equipment arranged in a functional way. She had a saline drip in her arm, along with something monitoring her pulse.
She also wasn’t alone. Lightning Dust sat upright suddenly from where she rested in one corner of the room, eyes widening. “Lucky!” She dropped the book she’d been reading, hurrying over to the edge of her hospital bed. “Are you alright?”
“N-no,” she croaked. “But I think I… will be.” She looked down. Her body was covered with bandages, and the flesh underneath felt raw. Burned. Pain like what she’d felt didn’t come from nowhere. But why did it hurt so much?
“The doctors don’t know what happened.” Dust touched her gently from the side, embracing her with one wing. “I asked, they couldn’t tell me. When I told them you’d gotten hurt getting your cutie mark, they didn’t believe me. I’ve been interviewed by three different ponies already. I think the princess even knows.”
“H-have they…” she began, but Dust hushed her with a hoof.
“No, they haven’t. At least, I don’t think they have.” She broke away. “You just rest. I’ll get the nurse.” She hurried out.
The next few hours were much of what Lucky would’ve predicted. Pony medical science might be primitive, but what they gave her for pain was far better than nothing. Several doctors and one policemare asked her about how she’d been burned, each time without Lightning Dust in the room. Each time she gave them the same honest answer—she’d just been playing music when she did it. No, her mom hadn’t hurt her. No, her mom never hurt her. Not even by accident. Yes, she knew she wouldn’t get in trouble if she told them bad things about Lightning Dust. She had nothing bad to say.
Eventually all those ponies left, and only Lightning Dust remained. Dust explained that she would have to go to work the next day, but she’d stay with Lucky every night until she was ready to leave the hospital.
The room was already full of gifts left by well-wishers. Dozens of cards, vases full of flowers, and boxes of chocolate. But more appeared over the next few days, as classmates and teachers stopped by to leave encouragement (or just homework she’d missed).
It took three days before Lucky could get out of bed, and five before the burns had healed enough for her to get a good look at her flank.
She stared at the bathroom mirror for nearly ten minutes straight, taking in her rapidly healing flesh and the new pattern partially concealed beneath the bandages.
Lucky knew what to expect from a cutie mark. It symbolized a pony’s special talent, which almost always grew to include their career. Most ponies would seek employment in the area represented by their mark even if they hadn’t previously even known they were interested in it. It was destiny, myth, and religion.
But Lucky Break had always known what she was: a linguist. She delighted in puzzles, in solving mysteries and figuring out things that confused her contemporaries. So, she expected a quill, or a book, or something else symbolizing that search for truth.
Instead, there was a guitar, with a heart-shaped head and four stylized strings. It seemed to be growing from her fur as well as her skin, though the colored fur there was only just regrowing. It would take another week at least before the damage from the burns was gone—months faster than the doctors were expecting. Another victory for genetic engineering.
Why would it be a guitar? I’m not… Well, she supposed she was modestly talented with a guitar. But not to the level that she would throw herself into it professionally! Art wasn’t a job, it was a hobby!
I bet it’s random. Ponies expect these things to say something about who they are, so they listen and focus and get good. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. But if that was true, why had it hurt so much? Why had it felt like she was being watched?
There was no easy answer. Lucky tried to focus on getting her homework done, despite how pointless it all seemed now. I’m done with my mission. I’ll probably have to go back to the Forerunner. She still didn’t know if she would. She didn’t have to decide yet. How much college could I do in a year? What would Dust think if I did?
Lucky Break had her cutie mark now. She was now a legal adult, and would begin what passed for puberty in earnest. She could own property, marry, or take an apprenticeship.
So while she did her homework, it was mostly to have something to distract herself other than the Daring Do novels Lightning Dust brought from the library. And yes, those were fun too… but they reminded her of the mystery to the north, and the small chance anyone but herself would ever investigate it.
Unless we just take over this whole planet. Well, it wasn’t a planet. Learning what’s behind that door is one way we might figure out who built this thing and why.
Another week, and Lucky was finally able to leave the hospital. She returned home with only a shorter mane and a bristly coat to show for her close encounter with the flames.
“It’s all pretty much the same,” Lightning Dust muttered, as she pushed the door open in front of them. Lucky was still regrowing some of her feathers, so she didn’t fly up the stairs. It was easier to walk. “Well, there is one thing different. Not sure how we’re gonna pay for it. Maybe I can convince the landlord it’s art.”
Lucky made her way into the single room apartment, searching for whatever detail Lightning Dust meant. It wasn’t hard to find—the area around where Lucky had been floating when she got her cutie mark had also been burned. Black lines charred everything—the table, the chair, the hardwood floor, twisting and curling into an intricate fractal pattern of dense spirals. Not words, or at least, not words as she understood them.
“Cutie marks aren’t supposed to do this?” she asked. Lucky stopped in front of the pattern, searching for anything familiar—or anything that might suggest a purpose. She found neither.
“Never heard of it,” Dust answered, setting Lucky’s full saddlebags. “Everypony’s heard stories of some filly or colt who floated in the air… like you did, I guess. But end up in the hospital?” She shook her head. “Never. I thought you might know.”
“Nope,” she muttered, walking over to the mirror, and turning her flank sideways. There was her cutie mark, that same silly guitar. It still doesn’t have anything to do with who I want to be. “My best guess is… whatever creates them interacted badly with my implants. The, uh… the parts of my insides that are artificial. My bones aren’t supposed to be conductive, but… maybe it reflected a charge or something?” She slumped onto the floor, staring forward at her guitar.
It still sat where she’d dropped it, complete with a brand-new dent. The composite surface appeared too sturdy to burn, though. “Dunno why it would be a stupid guitar. I’m not good at music.”
Mom laughed. “Not good with music? Lucky, I think you need to listen to yourself better. I’ve seen ponies practice their whole lives and not get as good as you sounded.” She stopped about a meter away, looking down. “Lucky, I’ve been meaning to ask. When I came in and found you…” She gestured vaguely with a wing. “When you were doing all that, you were playing a song. Do you remember?”
Lucky thought back. It was hard to reach past the pain—it had blurred everything around it. But parts were familiar. She nodded.
“It’s been almost thirty years since I’ve heard that song. I haven’t…” She sniffed, wiping away a tear. “Where did you hear it? One of those old books you like to read? Maybe you were reading about old pegasus songs to… help learn Eoch?”
Lucky shook her head. “I, uh… I dunno where it came from.” She stood up, wandering across the room towards where her guitar had fallen. “I was playing some songs I liked when I was a foal, because they’re easy and I wanted to think about something else. But then I… then I thought of some new songs. Like I’d just come up with them, except… except I didn’t?”
Lucky picked up her collapsible guitar from where it still lay. It had a thin film of dust, which she fanned away with a powerful beat from one wing. Lightning Dust hadn’t moved this in two weeks. Probably she didn’t come home much. From work to the hospital and back to work. Then, somewhere deeper: Lightning Dust really cares about me.
Not that she needed reminding. “I was just playing…” she continued, strumming a chord. It came out perfectly in-tune. She was only holding up the instrument with one hoof, not sitting as she always played before. This required an odd hopping gait to walk, but she wasn’t going very fast.
“I just played it as it came.” Now that she had the instrument back in her hooves, she could remember all the chords. Remember the tempo, the key. The words. Along with thousands of others.
“Listen to the whipperwills
They sing you now to sleep.
The sun has gone to bed my child,
And soon the sky will weep.”
Lucky sang as perfectly as she had weeks ago, though this time she didn’t lift off into the air. As before, her playing felt like rote, hardly requiring a fraction of her concentration to get every sound perfect.
Then she heard Lightning Dust’s voice. It cracked, heavy with the weight of weary years. She wasn’t a very good singer. Lucky stopped singing, though she kept playing the strange melody.
“These clouds are soft my child,
We’ll make no rain tonight.
And I will rest beside you,
Until Celestia’s light.”
Lightning Dust broke down—as badly as she had done in her hospital room, pulling little Lucky close and squeezing her like she was a stuffed doll. Lucky dropped the guitar again, squeaking in protest.
“H-hey.”
“I don’t know how you knew—” Lightning Dust whimpered into her ear. “B-but thanks. It’s been… a really long time… thanks for letting me hear it again.”
Lucky Break didn’t have a clue what Lightning Dust was talking about. But being held felt as nice as she remembered. They were a family, after all. “W-what’s that song from?”
“My mom.” Dust let her go. “When I was smaller than you… lots smaller… she used to sing it to me. It was the last thing I remember her doing, before…” She shook her head. “I’ve asked musicians to play it for me before, but nopony knows it. I couldn’t tell them what it was called.” She sat back on her haunches, laughing. “Ponies always say cutie marks are destiny. Maybe they’re right.”
“Maybe.” She scooped up the guitar. It was hard to deny how good she had felt playing it. The payoff of an entire lifetime of practice. “When you got your cutie mark, did you see something? Like… a pony watching you? Only… bigger than a pony. And not a pony. Like a… a thing. Maybe a god.”
Mom chuckled. “No, I didn’t. But I haven’t heard of anything like this happening, either.” She flicked her tail at the ground. “None of the doctors had. Guess when somepony comes in from… wherever you’re from… it’s special.”
It’s like Equestria knows I’m here. What’s the point of having me play guitar?
“How long are you going to keep me here?”
Deadlight asked the question in Eoch, but it was so familiar to James by now that she could understand it easily.
Of course, having one of the natives captive in Othar made learning the language much easier than it had been before. Even Lucky Break’s notes, complete as they were, had nothing on practice with a willing partner.
Deadlight was rarely in a good mood—who could blame him, after being captive for over a month now. Olivia still refused to give a definite answer for when he would be released. With every day that passed, James suspected she didn’t intend to let him go at all. He’s spent too long living with us. His only chance to ever get away was right after we caught him. The ship might’ve been a hallucination, but… has he figured out where the island is?
James had never told him, never given him any information that might be used to locate either settlement. But Deadlight was a clever pony—smarter than Olivia gave him credit for.
“So where are you from, really?” he asked, as James came in one morning with a hard-plastic box in her mouth.
She set the box down on the ground, then dragged over the rolling chair she usually sat in to practice. She was learning quickly, but she didn’t plan to play any today.
She didn’t answer, and Deadlight went on. “Nopony in Equestria would lock a pony away like you did.”
“No?” she asked, also in Eoch. “Why not?”
“Because it’s not right,” he said, marching right up to the edge of the bars and sitting down. “And you know it. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
James looked down, her ears flattening to her head. Her wings tucked up too, as small as she could make them. James had cut holes in her uniforms, using a pattern Martin showed her. It felt much better to have them out all the time. They’d even stopped stinking, though that was largely thanks to the prisoner. He’d been the one to explain how she should care for them.
“So you aren’t from Equestria,” he said again. “But you aren’t from the Minotaur triboj. Ili ne pensas dufoje pri preni sklavojn kaj devigi ilin labori. They don’t take care of them with good doctors. Ili ne zorgas. Se vi estus sent by griffins, I’d ask why you ne jam provintas manĝi min. Well…” He shook his head, expression full of disgust. “You’re still ponies, so I know why you wouldn’t. But still…” He looked down, staring at her.
James no longer wore her uniform pants at all, only the long jacket. The major had only pestered her once, and hadn’t brought it up again.
“You don’t have ĉarman markon. None of you.” He shook his head, eyes wide. “How is that?”
She shrugged, making the same confused face she always did when she didn’t understand.
Deadlight grunted, stomping one hoof in frustration. “You don’t make any sense! You’re more kiel mitoj ol real ponies! Like what Equestrians used to be… not what we are today. Krom vi ankaŭ ne estas kiel tio, ĉar ĉiuj vi estas identaj sisters.” He stomped his hoof again. “But you aren’t identaj laŭbone, because you’re always here and I never see your sisters. Krom se… se you aren’t really James?” He got up, pacing in front of the bars, tail whipping back and forth behind him with agitation.
“I’m James,” she said, lifting the box into her lap and struggling with the plastic latches. “The others do their hair different than I do. Wear their uniforms different. It’s… one way to tell ourselves apart.”
“James,” the pony repeated, annoyed. “Not even a real name. Didn’t your parents ever give you a name that meant something?”
She shrugged, her mouth too full to answer.
“Well, if nothing in this place makes sense, I’ll make sense of it,” he said. He pointed at her with his wing. “Your new name is Melody. Because… if it weren’t for your melodies, I might’ve already Perdis mian menson ĉi tie.”
“Melody,” she repeated, finding the word much easier to say than “Lucky Break” had been. But she had a month more practice. “Sounds nice. It’s not my real name, but I guess you can call me whatever.” She turned the box around in her lap, showing it to him. “Do you know what this is?”
“Nope.” He shook his head with annoyance. “Senidee.”
There were two things in the box. The first was a headset, though not the sound-exclusionary kind worn while flying on a Sojourner. It was made to mount over one ear, with a microphone extending down towards the muzzle. The second was like a bracelet, with a sturdy locking strap.
“Well, this first one goes on your head,” she said, clipping it on her own ear. “Ĝi ebligas vin paroli nian lingvon.”
As she spoke, another voice joined her, produced by the speaker near her ear. “The object permits talking like our words.”
“Ankaŭ kompreni ĝin.” She passed it through the bars.
Deadlight stared down at the object in wonder, his eyes so wide she couldn’t see the slits. He poked and prodded at the flexible titanium frame, the plastic clips. Then he imitated what she had done, securing it on one ear. It was made for a bat, so it fit better.
“How does it work?” said a synthesized voice, though this one was male instead of female. The translation had improved a great deal since they’d first used it on the trip over. The more notes came in from Lucky Break, the better the automated translation became.
Still no substitute from really speaking it. But better than not knowing half of what Deadlight says.
“You just talk,” she said. “So long as you’re on the mesh, it…” His face twisted in confusion, and she tried again. “If you are in here, it will translate what we say. So we can talk more easily—and so the others can understand you. Mostly for them.”
Deadlight grinned, the ear with the headset twitching with every word she said. “It works!”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “But I’ll ask you not to use it all the time. You’ve been very helpful with Eoch so far.”
“Why don’t you know your own language?”
She didn’t answer, holding up the second object. “This is… well, I won’t lie to you. It isn’t a present like the first one. This is a tracker. It… follows you. If you try to run away, it will warn us. If you try to take it off, it will hurt you. Please don’t try to take it off.”
Deadlight’s eager expression transformed into a glare in less than a second, and he retreated from the bars. “I cannot wear it,” he said. “But what is the point? You are already my prisoner. I am wearing your bracelet so I cannot catch it, Melody?”
James resisted the urge to chuckle at the clumsy machine translation. But laughing when Deadlight was obviously so upset would not help him.
“It’s like you said,” she answered, making her way over to the bars. She wasn’t afraid—Deadlight had never tried to hurt her. “Keeping you here is wrong. But if my boss won’t let you go, I could at least take you around Othar. That’s, uh… the name of this place. The City of Othar. Would you like to see it?”
Deadlight’s expression softened. He glanced between her and the bracelet. “If I put it, will you exile me from prison? Can you explore your city?”
That one took her a moment. She nodded. “Stick your hoof through the bars. Once I put it on, you can go with me. But… you have to promise to do what I say.”
He nodded eagerly, extending a leg through the bars as ordered. Easily close enough that he could’ve hit her, or tried to grab her. Instead he held his leg there, still. She secured the house-arrest tracker around one of his legs. It had to be tight, the metal contacts close to his skin. If he tried to get it off and it didn’t have time to shock him, well… then she’d be the one in trouble.
Everything about this was going to get her in trouble no matter how well it went.
He pulled the leg back into the bars, straightening and stretching right in front of the exit gate.
James had to resist the urge to stare—this stallion was a reminder not just of what she’d lost in her sleeving, but in how much had been changed. Watching him made her feel strange, so she tried never to look too closely.
“Now listen to me,” she said again, as seriously as she could. “I’m going to be honest with you, Deadlight. Okay?” He nodded, and she went on. “You have no chance of escaping. If you try, Major Fischer might kill you. She authorized the auto-turrets…” She trailed off, realizing that didn’t make sense. “There is powerful magic on our city. If anything leaves without permission, they will die.” She made her way up to the bars. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”
She switched to Eoch. If anything did go bad, Fischer would probably review the security footage of this exact moment. Have fun making sense of an auto-translation. “Mi volas, ke vi vizitu miajn amikojn. Se vi amikiĝas kun ankaŭ ili, ili volos forliberigi vin. Mi volas, ke ili kredu vin. Tiam vi almenaŭ povas dormi en bona dormĉambro kiel ni aliaj anstataŭ en jail.” She didn’t know that last word.
“Kun vi?” he asked, his headset translating for him. Something that simple didn’t give it trouble.
She blushed, shuffling on her hooves, and looking away. “Nun mi havas mian propran ĉambron.” What did that mean? She wanted to say something else, but found her confused brain struggled to string the Eoch words together. She shook her head, clearing it. Then she gave up and just spoke in English. “The major was kinda drunk when she okayed this. She… might not be too happy to find out I did it. But if you’re on your best behavior… you just walk around, you do what I say, or anyone else… you’ll make a great impression. Got it?”
“Got it,” he said, nodding again. “Let’s go! I want to see how you ponies live!”
James stood in front of the bars, straightening. “Forerunner, unlock the doors to the brig.”
Pause. “Authorization granted.” The lock clicked open. The heavy gate didn’t move right away—it had to be lifted out of the way by an enormous hydraulic-driven pile. Yet another safety measure to prevent an easy escape, in the event of damage or a power failure. Even with the lock broken, five grown men couldn’t lift the bars.
They ground upward towards the ceiling, lifting only a total of three feet. Low enough that a human would have to crawl, but all Deadlight had to do was lower his head slightly.
“Are you ready?” James asked, a grin spreading across her face. “This is gonna be so awesome! I can’t wait to show you what we’re building.”
“Yeah,” Deadlight said, returning her grin. There was a little more fang in it than usual. “I’m ready.”
The next thing James felt was one of Deadlight’s hooves slamming her head against the wall. She was unconscious before she hit the floor.
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Well, I didn't see that coming.
8375104
That's a good sign for an exciting chapter
Operational security isn't part of standard training for linguists is it
Oh dear... I guess Daylight will be killed next chapter since he doesn't understand what weapons are
Damnit, this is why you don't release your prisoners!
Heh, the Major was right.
I have to wonder about the burns LB received during her cutie mark. Was she right about her bones being non-conductive? (Not sure why her bones would be non-conductive to magic seeing how she'd modeled after a real pony) But she is a linguist, not a mage or biologist, so it could be that entity that caused it. A way of killing an intruder on the ring, but LB's biology and implants saved her. Alternatively the burns could simply have been caused by the entity's scrutiny alone, and not direct intent.
also, poor Deadlight. He's going to walk face first into a Kill U Bot 9000 if he's not careful.
I wonder how much similarity there was between Lucky's weird cutie mark and what happens during an alicorn ascension. If the princesses have heard about this, and Lucky's name is familiar to Twilight from the letter, she's going to be pretty interested, I think.
When Deadlight writes about his adventures, he's going to look like some cross between Daring Do and whatever the equivalent of James Bond is. I kind of hope some of the next chapter is from his perspective escaping...
8375185
Oh he understands weapons, but Melody didn't quite explain it right. Cannons Deadlight would understand, "if you leave cannons will shoot you" he'd understand that. There is a chance we won't be stupid and take Melody's warning at face value, that a if he tries to leave he will die, also his explorers curiosity could compelled him to stay just to learn about them.
I think Lucky was right that her implants reacted badly with her cutie mark. Magic is energy and gaining ones mark causes their magic to be focused on their flanks. Her implants likely overloaded due to sudden intense energy influx. She'd better warn the Forerunner, "oh if you realize what you best at you're ass will burn!". Also her mark does make sense, what is music but another kind of language?
Well Deadlight's dead
And has Lucky earning her cutiemark mean that she's fully equestrian now? This is all very confusing, sometimes I wonder how you come up with these things
I mean, human cultures have been doing that for centuries. It's only as Greek, Hebrew, Latin and such decayed that half the world stopped doing it.
Like it or not this is where your gonna die.
8375223
I do agree with you and think that was a really interesting idea for the author to do for the story. Now, I have to wonder if the cutie marks are all part of the system of the RingWorld.
Also, she felt someone was watching her... Could be Celestia or Luna
Well, yeah James, that's what happens
.
And then Forerunner bolted the room, released the containment gas, remote activated the shocker and activated the local security systems while the security bots powered up.
Edit:
Oh wait, are cutie marks a containment system too? Marking people with dangerous ideas to different paths of life? That cutie mark could really be a hindrance in getting by in academic circles if the society is set up around them.
Edit edit:
Wait wait, could it be there is some kind of wireless knowledge mesh in ponylands and reaction was bad due to OS incompatibility issue? This would explain the lyrics which popped into Lucky's mind.
8375241
My suspicion is the ring world was built by Alicorns, and Celestial and Luna are the last alicorns born, before Flurry, deposited as foals with in Equestria knowing the ponies would raise them to be rulers. The system that runs the ring world is trying to restore it's creators rac, alicorns are hyper evolved ponies so it's been guiding ponies toward breeding new alicorns by transforming magically powerful ponies. Flurry Heart is the first success as a naturally born alicorn.
lighting dust is vary happy and lucky now has her cutey mark.
Deadlight just messed up big time.
You'd think a linguist would be able to tell him the original meaning of James (roughly who 'he who grasps the heel' or 'supplanter'). But it's possible he didn't cover much in the way of biblical Hebrew or James could know, but didn't feel it worth explaining.
I would rather that Deadlight didn't die, but I'd rather he didn't escape even more. I suppose we'll just have to see.
It seemed more like she was entered into the program. The actions of the other ponies in the world reacted less to "destiny" because their future acts were already mostly in the system. For Lucky Break, she was not a part of the system, so it had to do a total workup of what her role would be on Eoch. Obviously it was at least not displeased with what she would do.
Somehow I think if one of the gen 5s were to get their marks, it wouldn't take to them nearly as well.
Also note that her soul doesn't (or DIDN'T) match her biosleeve. The original occupant of that bodyform had a different mind and destiny.
=======
Unfortunately for Lucky Break, the college probably won't want her now for the purposes she wanted. With a guitar on her flank, music academies would want her but linguistic departments less so.
8375283
I don't know about that. I mean, ponies are not that much evil, it seems. I think it's less about stopping ponies with different cutie marks from doing things than such ponies not wanting to do them.
Well, Lucky has a butt tattoo now. Let's see how that helps or hinders her. Also, I bet Twilight will want to meet the mare that got burned receiving her destiny... And that shortly before had contacted her about the history concealing conspiracy.
Welp, deadlight is dead then. Cool.
"lucky's log, eoch has no less than 400 distinct words for friendship and suprisingly no single word for enemy, anger, or hostility. the closest translation for "my enemy" appears to be "friend i currently don't see very often for reasons i cannot state." more on this to come..."
Wow. Before the ending of this chapter, I was totally shipping Deadlight and 'Melody'. Now, I can't imagine Deadlight is going to survive long enough for any hypothetical docking.
8375271
My theory is that humanity built the ring world and then populated it with Earth life before genetically engineering mythological creatures with sapience. It's either an ongoing experiment, a true attempt at utopia, or a last ditch effort to save life after humanity was wiped out or something, with the prions being a deterrent for any potential invaders who might want to live there.
The start of this chapter was a bit jarring. It just jumped right into Lucky Break's perspective as if there had been no break between the start of this chapter and the end of the last LB section. I had to go back to the last chapter and scroll the page to the end of LB's portion of that chapter to make sense of this chapter's opening. It would have worked better with just one more sentence to smooth out that transition, something along the lines of: "Lucky sent a report of her find back to the Forerunner, suggesting they go investigate."
8375271
When Lucky Break was judged I was half expecting the ringworld to have been built to create alicorns.
8375351
You haven't been reading the story, have you?
8375115
Yeah, the next could be anything from "shot while trying to escape" to "Melody didn't unlock the outside door yet" to "Deadlight now considers himself square with Melody, though not the rest of the crew", and that's not mentioning the possibility that Deadlight knows exactly what he's doing.
Welp. Bye bye dead light. Ponies vs. tech is one of the best things in my opinion. Magic vs. high-tech weapons. Let's see him outrun an autoturret
the language of music, its going to come in handy somehow, also deadlight you messed up really bad
Dammit, man, you can't just keep introducing more and more mysteries into the plot without actually solving any of them! We need some answers.
Congrats on 1000 likes!
Hmm, either this Cutie Mark is very abstractified and means "Harmony" in general, or the one who gives Cutie Marks wanted Lucky to be distracted with road tours, and not dig where she shouldn't.
Deadlight have no idea what's a "culture" is, isn't he? He's coming from a sad homogeneous place, after all.
This is one of the worst ways to introduce a new name. Mock your name, casually dismiss it, then smugly declare a new name? I already hate it with all my heart. Kinda reminds me of characters losing their names in Spirited Away.
The ringworld itself appears to be watching, this could be a bad sign for anyone that doesn't integrate peacefully like Lucky kind of accidentally stumbled into doing.
Neat cutie mark talent, though.
Is there something missing from the start of this chapter? It doesn't sit right by itself nor flow from the end of the previous chapter.
8375266
I agree if I was having that system designed the system would do all that, plus immediately wake the entire base with a prisoner escaped alarm. Additionaly if he didn't go down immediately it would then start lowering the air levels until he went down, if for some reason the target still isn't going down (and I can't lower the levels any lower without killing my friendly in the room, although forerunner might not care) I'd have turrets open fire with lethal rounds because the target is obviously immune to my nonleathal countermeasures. As all this is happening all air from the surrounding rooms would be evacuated in all directions for at least three bulkheads, those bulkheads being secured after the crews evacuated or the prisoner breaches the brig, whichever comes first. The previously mentioned security bots would patrol the corridors for the escapee. As a final precaution the base's self destruct would be armed... I think I spent too long watching Sci-Fi shows and thinking of ways to prevent escape of the ultimate bad guy.
8375581
from the last chapter..
And this chapter continue ..
8375402
ya i have i just loved the line about there being a lot of words for friendship and not many for for negative emotions
G5 James still too naive .. , and she might be hostage by Deadlight .
And Lucky Break got her Cutie Mark... , wonder if James continue play guitar... , would James get same Cutie Mark , too?
8375374
That's a pretty exciting take. Like if humanity had somehow advanced so far in countless eons, and that this Forerunner is actually one of the thousands, if not more, ancient Forerunners that have been endlessly searching for planets to land on. But then the world it landed on had already been shaped by a previous Forerunner that went haywire, which explains the prions. Even more of a twist would be if the planet was Earth itself but teraformed beyond recognition. Then again it might be just plain and simple, that they are on an alien planet. But your theory is a much more surprising development and clever way to bring things full circle.
Also regarding Lucky Break, I think whatever god is behind cutie marks and the creation of Equus, is also bringing about the memories of the late Morning Dew. She described it like she knew the words and played the guitar with her wings more than well as if from memory. Not to mention it was a child's lullaby she was singing. Morning Dew did have children, so singing her kids to sleep could have been a major part of her talent. This could explain why her cutie mark is a heart-shaped guitar when she clearly knows she has a passion for linguistics. Even more I fear that Morning Dew's memories will resurface and clash with Lucky's mind.
Wait, wait, wait. Don't tell me she's ascending?
Ok, now i think hes actually a changeling. This is because he is a pretty good actor, and that fang part seems off.
Whelp. Deadlight just solved the problem of how long they'll keep him. Really should have expected that with the first part of his name literally being "dead"
Also... did Lucky just almost get Alicorn'd??
8375433
He may outrun its rotation, but not the bullets ripping him to shreds.
8375601
Yes, the "language more centered around friendly emotions and less around hostile ones" is an interesting subject, but your expansion of that to "there aren't even any words for someone else not being a friend, nor words for being angry with someone else, nor the ability to articulate disagreement with what someone else is doing" is just blatant silliness. Look at the events of Lightning Dust's life and her thoughts, words, and actions in this very story. Next to that, 400 being an unbelievably large number of words for different types of friendship is small change.
If you were deliberately creating an insanely exaggerated caricature for comedic purposes, well ... sorry I didn't get the joke. Ha ha?
Deadlight may be more than he seems. His name is Deadlight, after all. He's probably not a lamp-post repairman.
8375806
true but he has never really encountered modern security measures. Also the AI could probably seal him in a room if he enters one. But now he also most likely lost the trust of James/Melody, and painted as hostile, meaning he wont be let out at any point if he is recaptured.
8375624
We're getting some major hinting here, like the fact that Eoch apparently would have fit right into the Indo-European language family. In other words, Esperanto doesn't seem to be a translation convention for us, it's either Eoch = Esperanto or Eoch is so close to Esperanto as makes no odds -- modulo Ancient Eoch which was canted and tonal.
But Deadlight references an event, probably the Hearthswarming founding of Equestria, that "made us what we are now." Ancient Eoch could easily be another language that was slowly molded into being a modified form of Esperanto.
The ringworld itself could easily have been produced by ultra-advanced Kardashev Level 2 human societies, long after all Forerunner probes were considered lost to history and the depths of space. We really don't know how long that probe spent in interstellar space, and how long the root civilization had to advance how far.
Maybe they made Alcubierre Drives actually work long after they launched the Forerunners and tried colonizing the stars that way. Having done so, they advanced well beyond what clone civilizations can do, or even remember being possible.
8375283
Big interesting question here: if they've all been biosleeved in clones of the same one pony, how come it's the James Irwin clones - both of them - that slowly but steadily go native?
8375898
They are linguists. A linguist is by definition, one with the people. You have to be able to deal with people to function. Plus it tends to imply an interest in, and in a way an immersion in other cultures.
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I mean what else do you have on the team? A very self-absorbed scientist type, a self-righteous warrior type.... The keyword there is SELF. James is not nearly so self-oriented.
8375271
That's actually a really neat idea!
I'm guessing that both Lucky's Cutie Mark and her knowledge of that song come from the pony the biosleeve was made from.
Her glimpses suggest that some sort of supernatural power is involved in assigning Cutie Marks. Did she burn because whatever it was realized that her soul doesn't match the pony's body, and sees her as some sort of infestation?