> An Academic Visit
>  by RustPony
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

> An Unexpected Invitation
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hereby a command is given in the name of the Equestrian Diarchy to all whom it may concern: to allow the bearer (Professor Silver Compass) to pass freely without let or hindrance, to afford the bearer such assistance as is necessary and to ensure his safe return.


As the train chugged along, Silver Compass read the letter again, even though he knew it by heart now. It was repeated in Equestrian and Griffonian, and followed by a large official seal. He was fairly certain he was the first pony to receive such a letter. They were all under Celestia’s protection of course, no matter where in Equus they went, but it was still comforting to see it in black and white.

What was strange is that the Griffonian Democratic Republic had insisted on him having it. They were nothing but eager to have him, but if he were a visiting academic he must have something stating under which state’s protection he was. No exceptions. A strange quirk, but at least having it had made the Imperial Guards at the airship dock politer. A lot politer.

He was just glad two weeks of airship travel were at an end. Two weeks crossing the Eastern Ocean was more than enough time to question his life-choices and how exactly he had ended up in his situation.

Two and half weeks ago he had no idea he was about to embark. He had been at home in Canterlot, reading some papers on Starswirl’s unsolved theorem—he scribbled in the margin of a book with a claim to have a proof, but none was ever found or published—when there had been a knock on his door.

He went to the door, impatient with whoever had disturbed him to sell a vacuum cleaner or something similarly useless. Instead of a salespony he found a squad of Royal Guards.

“I am Sergeant Bright Lance,” the guard in front said. “Are you Professor Silver Compass?”

“Yes,” he said, surprised.

“Your presence is requested at the palace for a vital diplomatic matter. Will you attend?” asked Bright Lance. He had a short, sharp way of talking, like every guard: their speech was as identical as their appearance.

“Yes.” For a moment he had feared there was an emergency evacuation or he had been accidentally involved in some crime. If it was a diplomatic matter, it was probably related to the international journal he edited. The Griffon Queen was notoriously sensitive these days; perhaps he had accidentally offended her and now had to make a perfunctory apology to the ambassador.

“Good,” Bright Lance said, “Please follow us.”

He followed them to the palace.

He walked the route often enough; the university he lectured at was very close to it. He had, however, never been escorted by eight Royal Guards when walking the route. They were not marching, exactly. But the way they walked was lockstep and fast. He was falling behind and started cantering to keep up with them.

The streets were not very full, and no one paid them much attention. Royal Guards were a common sight, after all. It did also not behoove Canterlot ponies to stare at sights, like common ponies would. 

Soon, they were at the palace. There was a brief halt at the gate when Bright Lance explained who they were to the guard at the gate, but quickly they went on.

He could not help but look around at the inside. He had not been in the palace in a long time, and it was every bit as beautiful as he remembered. As they marched through the halls he noticed again an illuminated map hanging above the stairway to the diplomacy suites. He had seen it several times and always found it very beautiful. He was admiring a painting with a scene from the Crystal Empire when he noticed all the decorations were completely unfamiliar to him.

“Wait, the diplomacy suites are back there!” he said. At this point he was starting to realize he would have to make more than a perfunctory apology to a diplomat. He knew they usually just sent a Royal Guard with a scroll when he was needed at the palace. A polite scroll, not a squad of guards to march him to the palace immediately.
“We are going to the throne room,” said Bright Lance. Silver Compass felt he had forgotten his stomach at home.

“To see… The Princess?” Silver Compass asked.

“Both. That is why we waited until dusk.”

“....” Silver Compass had fainted. The two guards closest to him shrugged. Each lowered a head and took one of Silver Compass forelegs over their withers. They started dragging him to the throne room. This was a fairly normal occurrence after all.





“Please do not be alarmed, my little pony,” said a kind, warm voice that he was sure he had heard before. He felt uncomfortable. His legs were bent at unnatural angle and his barrel was laying on the cold floor. He opened an eye and saw a large white leg in a golden shoe. 

He looked up. 

He looked further up and saw Celestia standing in front of him.

“Your majesty.. ies!” he said, alarmed and correcting himself when he noticed Luna. He scrambled up. He realized he hadn’t bowed and knelt down again. His balance was however not fully recovered yet, and he fell over. Celestia sat down while he stood up again, more carefully. He was in the throne room. The actual throne room. Luna was on a throne next to Celestia, and both were looking at him as well as a variety of guards and servants.

“I have a letter for you,” Celestia said levitating a piece of paper to him, “it is an invitation to take part in a round-table discussion of mathematics in Talon’s End University.” 

He reached out a hoof and took it.

He took a moment to concentrate on the strangeness of the letter, because the Princess playing postmare was currently too confusing to contemplate. It looked more like a page from a book than a letter. It was pure white with neat printed black letters. But, it was clearly a letter. It had his name on it, right at the top. Had whoever sent it gone to the great trouble of assembling an entire box of type and setting up a printing press just to make one letter look nice?

“There is a reason why it did not come through your letterbox,” Celestia said. “The University has been trying to invite you for many years. We were convinced to intervene in the negotiations with Queen Odilla to allow you passage.”

The room was very large and open, but Silver Compass still felt as if the walls were closing in. He focused forward, trying not to faint.

“Queen Odilla of the Griffon Empire,” Celestia added helpfully. “Are you familiar with the former province of Talon’s End and the current situation?”

“No, your majesty,” said Silver Compass, “I remember there was a bit of a disturbance there… many years ago?”

“Indeed!” said Luna loudly, “the Griffons reinvented an old craft and brought forth a portal to a new world! A most magnificent achievement! And being such beings as they are, they immediately became embroiled in a bloody war with its inhabitants.”

“We intervened and negotiated a peace settlement,” said Celestia. “As part of the settlement, the province of Talon’s End—where the portal is—would become a separate state, subject to the leadership of the citizens of the other world. It is now called the ‘Griffonian Democratic Republic’.”

“A new world!” exclaimed Silver Compass, “Why did nopony hear about it?”

“Queen Odilla took the peace agreement poorly. She ordered every border sealed around the province. The inhabitants are not allowed in her empire. Not even her former Griffon subjects in the province are allowed passage. She also ordered any communication from and to the province burned or blocked. This of course means the new world’s inhabitants can not visit the other nations of our world.”

“The letter?” Silver Compass asked.

“Brought by us,” said Luna, “on our way back from a diplomatic visit. A most successful visit, we might add!”

“We, meaning Luna and I, would consider it a personal favour if you would accept this invitation and attend this discussion,” Celestia finished for Luna.

Silver Compass said nothing, he needed the next minute to process all of this.

“Well, subject?” asked Luna not letting him have the minute, “What sayest thou?”





He understood well enough that he had become embroiled in a complicated game of politics. He was not sure why they had chosen him. The only thing that could have brought him to their attention was that he was the editor for the international journal of mathematics. But still, why him specifically? If they wanted internationally minded professors, there were many. He dined with the Chair of International Languages and Cultures at Canterlot University often enough.

He could think of no real reason why it was him sitting in this quite uncomfortable train, flanked by a Unicorn Guard and a Night Guard staring into a very surly Griffon administrator’s face.

Not that he wasn’t eager to go, even now. The letter, once he had finally read it, had been a standard and bland invite for a discussion of the state of the art of Equestrian mathematics and the possibilities of contributing to each other’s knowledge. It was printed oddly, but that could just be tradition. However, at the bottom they had included a list of numbers. He would have come all this way, alone, just to ask them about that list if he had gotten that letter in his letterbox.

2 - 3 - 5 - 7 - 13 - 17 - 19 - 31 - 61 - 89 - 107 - 127 - 521 - 607 - 1279 - 2203 - 2281 - 3217 - 4253 - 4423 - 9689 - 9941 - 11213 - 19937 - 21701 - 23209 - 44497 - 86243 - 110503 - 132049 - 216091 - 756839 - 859433 - 1257787 - 1398269 - 2976221 - 3021377 - 6972593 - 13466917 - 20996011 - 24036583 - 25964951 - 30402457 - 32582657

It was obviously the Mersenne Primes. At least the first dozen were. The rest were implied to be, by their inclusion in the list. But even to prove 2¹²⁷ - 1 a prime number had been a massive effort. He could not imagine the effort to prove 2³²⁵⁸²⁶⁵⁷ - 1 prime. To calculate with anything resembling traditional means would wear down every piece of chalk in Equestria. Just writing it down as a number would require a massive hall of endless chalkboards, or several thick books

He was undoubtedly the first pony, ever, to know that 2⁵²¹ - 1 is one of the Mersenne Primes. He could hardly suppress a giggle of excitement.

“It is not appropriate to laugh in the Silent Province,” said the administrator, who had escorted them on the final train. He had not given his name to them, as a sign of disapproval of their mission. “A hundred thousand died here.”

“What?” Silver Compasslooked up from the letter sharply.

“Look,” the administrator said, pointing a talon at the window. Silver Compass had not bothered to look out the windows much this train ride. He was too busy worrying.

He looked out the window and saw lush green grass and shrubs, growing tangled through the blackened ruins of a city, through which the train was passing. There wasn’t a single building standing, just endless ruined remnants. All of it had fallen at an angle, pointing back to where the train had come from.

“They did this. A hurricane of fire,” the administrator continued. “One moment it was a bustling city and the next it was torn apart. They poisoned the ruins somehow; we can not even rebuild the city. All who lingered here grew very ill. Just clearing the tracks for this train was an incredible effort.”

“They destroyed the entire city?” asked Silver Compass, disbelieving.

“No,” said the administrator shortly. “The province. So, please, show respect. If you have any left, after betraying our world to consort with theirs. You being here is an insult. They destroy one province, enslave another and you come over to make polite conversation with them.”

Silver Compass sat in silence the rest of the trip. Magic always left traces and great magical battles could scar huge areas, like the Everfree Forest. Or completely throw them out of time, like the Crystal Empire. Whatever magical artifacts or ruling entity that guarded the realm the Griffons had found certainly was not subtle or very precise. He was curious, but he did not feel it would be polite to ask for details.





Silver Compass paused, even though he had been told not to linger. The final part of his journey was on hooves: a five mile walk from the Imperial fortress. If he looked backwards again he could see it looming behind him, thick stone enclosed in an air-tight forcefield. If he had cared to look left or right in the far distance he could have seen the tiny spheres of the subsequent fortresses in the chain that surrounded the entire province.

He was however looking at his destination. There was a massive statue of a griffon in bright copper, a mountain ridge on either side. It was standing with a talon held in front of it, pointed directly at the fortress he had come from. Half a broken manacle hung from its wrist. It was fierce and accusing; with raised wings and narrowed eyes.

His destination was just underneath the statue. It looked like something out of the Crystal Empire, shining brightly like a faceted jewel. He had been told it housed the portal. 

He saw no welcome banners or anything outside, just a doorway in a shining wall. From this view it seemed deserted. Was he supposed to just walk in? Did he need to present his letter to some hidden defense before he would be allowed through?

“Where are the guards?” he asked. He did not wish to be mistaken for a spy, by whatever defence the Republic had put up.

“We could never see them,” said Bright Lance, one of the guards he had been assigned, “but they must be there. Five years ago a small party of mercenaries tried to attack the building. Of course Queen Odilla denied all involvement. They did not make it halfway across.”

“Queen Odilla?” asked Silver Compass, trying to place the name. “The Griffon Queen?”

Bright Lance nodded.

“I see,” said Silver Compass, not feeling reassured at all. “Was that true about the Silent Province?”

“Yes,” said Bright Lance.

“Oh,”. The grass under his hooves was soft and springy; all in all it should have been a pleasant walk. But the closer he came to the building, the more the statue loomed menacingly. He could feel a horde of invisible eyes on him, watching from who knew where.

He was an academic, used more to a sedentary lifestyle. Five mile walks were not part of his daily routine, and it took him a few hours including breaks. However, he still came to the front of the building much sooner than he would have liked.

Two griffons had walked out to meet him. They were dressed bizarrely, even to someone who was used to Canterlot fashions. Their entire bodies were covered by a dark blue suit of sorts, and they wore blue caps. However, unlike what one would expect from such a ludicrously formal choice of clothes everything was simplistic and undecorated. A few trimmings at the seams, some symbols here and there were the only variation from the solid blue colour. He could also see no weapons.

“Silver Compass, a pleasure to meet you. I am officer Asta Elofsdaughter and this is my colleague officer Hagen Gunnarson,” said Asta. Her introduction had been elegant Griffonian, except for officer which was not a word he knew. It was not Griffonian, judging by the weird sounds in it that Asta could not quite pronounce. He could of course not judge anyone on that, due to not having a beak he had to click his teeth on most of the Griffonian consonants.

“Please follow us,” Asta continued. 

Silver Compass sighed. It seemed he was not yet done being a parcel passed around between various officials.

They walked through the large door in the wall of glass. Inside was a large hall, with a marble floor. The light shone in strange patterns on it. The hall was however, almost entirely empty. There was a large circular desk in the middle, but there was nopony attending to it. All things considered, the eerie emptiness that marked his approach was still present.

A thing lurched out of a hallway at the back, startling him badly. There was no other way to describe how it moved. It was bipedal, but its way of walking was nothing like a Minotaur’s shuffle. It looked like it was constantly in the process of falling over and just catching itself. Silver Compass was about to try and hide behind his guards when it spoke.

“Welcome,” it said, “I’m called Charles Campbell head of the diplomatic corps of the GDR.” He spoke Griffonian, or at least made an excellent effort. He also used his teeth instead of a beak on the more difficult consonants. For his name however, he had spoken in whatever language was his own. Silver Compass could identify maybe half of the sounds, and only then from the many languages he spoke. It included at least one bizarre tongue trilling noise he had thought was unique to the Zebras.

The alien name just added to its alien appearance. It was also dressed as formally as the other guards; the only parts of its body he could see were its hands and face, both of which were disturbingly without fur or feathers. It was, however, dressed less simply than the griffon guards, wearing a layered upper body covering, a curious wrist bracelet with a clock face, and a bright cheerful tie that would not have looked out of place at the Grand Galloping Gala.

His pondering on appearances was disturbed when he realized he was being handed something. A small card. Somewhat confused, he took it with his front hoof. On it was his face — an excellent photo too — and name in Griffonian letters. Not sure what to do with it, he put it in his satchel.

“Please do not lose that,” continued Charles, “if you do, please report it to the nearest police officer as soon as you can. It is your proof of identity. You will need it to enter at the gates and do various other things. Your guards should already have theirs.”

“The gates?” Silver Compass asked, confused.

“Yes, please… “ said Charles, he started to make a gesture with his front limbs. The meaning Silver Compass could guess at.

“Follow you?”

“Indeed.”

They walked quickly. Charles’ strange gait was surprisingly fast. They walked past the empty reception desk and towards a doorway in the back. When they went through it he realized what was making everything seem weird: every ceiling and doorway was about twice as high and twice as broad as he was used to.

After a short walk through a hallway that was surprisingly utilitarian, at least considering the gleaming outside of the building. It had a plain white ceiling and walls and a dark tiled floor of some sort. They turned left into another hall. 

The view there was not so utilitarian. They arrived at a railing, with a circular walkway going both left and right. Looking down, he saw many other walkways on lower floors and finally a circular floor. Escalators, like in Manehattan, connected the various levels.

Griffons were everywhere; oddly, not a single one flew. Here and there one of the strange creatures lurched about. Everyone was wearing a ridiculous amount of clothes. He had never seen Griffons wearing anything more than ceremonial or combat armour before, but almost all the clothes fit well and were obviously made for the Griffonian shape.

Bright Lance politely nudged him, and pointed to their guide. He was quickly moving ahead of them, and they had to hurry to catch up.

“Why are there so many Griffons here?” Silver Compass asked.

“It is the only connection to Earth,” Charles said. “Even for what amounts to a large city-state a single small port for every piece of cargo and every passenger is a tight fit. The scheduling has posed some unique challenges. Unfortunately we’ve been told opening a second portal is utterly impossible while this one is active.”

While highly informative, this was not exactly what he had meant to ask. However, he could not bring himself to rephrase the question.

“Do you think it would be possible to open a second portal?” Charles asked, in a manner that seemed to be casual.

“I… wouldn’t know, “ said Silver Compass. He tapped his forehead meaningfully. Charles only seemed confused by the gesture though, so he explained it.

“I am not a unicorn. Magic is not my strong suit.”

“Oh. I recall with the Griffons there is also a genetic predisposition, but nothing like a caste system.”

Silver Compass had not fully understood the sentence; it used a lot of specific words in what was his third language. But he could not help feeling vaguely insulted.

“Left here, please,” said Charles. He had been leading them around their current landing, but they had come to a nondescript door against the wall. He was unfamiliar with the style of door handle: it was a long pointed thing with a metal slot underneath instead of a normal keyhole. It was some kind of keyhole though, because Charles stuck a flat white key into it, which made a small light on it blink green and click open.

The door opened on a sight that was more than a little strange. A wall of what looked like nothing so much as wire cages. They reached from floor to ceiling with no room between them. Each looked big enough to hold a single griffon, or big enough to hold him with room to spare. They were all empty, with their doors swung open. Through the wires he could vaguely see another door in a wall on the other side.

“This is the diplomatic entrance to the station,” Charles said. “You will be taking the maglev to the center. There you will be met by a person from the hotel. You have to pass through border control first. This is a priority entrance, which is good because otherwise you’d be in a very long queue.”

“What is a magelef?”

“A type of train.”

“Oh.” Silver Compass was sick of trains. Ever since he had landed in the Griffon Empire he had taken a series of trains. Initially they had been up to Equestrian standards. But as he came closer to edge of the Griffon Empire they had become less comfortable inside and had gone over progressively worse track. He was not looking forward to another long bumpy train ride with unscheduled delays.

“Why are there these metal things?”

“Passport control. Just use your card. They are immune to illusion spells. Once through, go through the door in front. I will wait here until you are through in case you have any problems. Goodbye!”

Nervously he approached the metal cages. His guards seemed to be familiar with them; they both walked into one and pulled shut the wire door behind them. He walked into a third, empty box. A very large sign with utterly alien script covered most of the front wall. Underneath was a black shiny rectangle.

Not sure what to do, he attempted to read the sign. There were a dozen of scripts which seemed to have little in common except being entirely unreadable. He was glad to see that in the bottom corner was Griffonian. However, just above it he saw something even better, Canterlot Equestrian. It politely instructed him to close the gate behind him.

He could have guessed that but didn’t want to try until he was sure. He grabbed the gate at its protruding lower crossbar with his hoof, which was somewhat uncomfortable. There was a round knob, but he could not grip it easily, as it was too tall for him. The gate closed easily enough, but with a very final buzzing noise. He could no longer see out easily. He pushed it, and it did not yield in the slightest.

He was trapped. He looked back to the sign quickly and realized there was a second part. ‘Please touch your identity card to the white dot or slide your passport through the slot.” He could not read one of the words, it looked like a phonetic loanword but of what he could not guess. He could however guess what kind of card an identity card was. He retrieved it from his satchel and found the white dot, just underneath the black rectangle.

“Welcome to the automated passport control system!” a happy cheerful voice sounded out of absolutely nowhere, in perfect Griffonian. Letters were appearing on the black rectangle, spelling out what the voice said. “We detect that this is your first visit, is that correct?”

“Yes,” he said, not sure who he was speaking to.

“I could not understand that. Please repeat loudly and clearly,” the voice continued, still bright and cheerful.

“Yes!” he said, making sure to enunciate every consonant.

“Thank you! Please look directly forward, to facilitate initial registration.”

He looked directly forward.

“Thank you! You are now registered! You are entering on a special diplomatic visa, is that correct?”

“Yes…” he said, not sure what a visa was, but fairly certain he was entering in a special and diplomatic way.

“I could not understand that. Please repeat loudly and clearly,” the voice said, in exactly the same way it had the first time.

“Yes!”

“Welcome to the Griffonian Democratic Republic! Please, enjoy your stay!”

There was another buzzing noise and the screen swung away to the side. The way was now clear to the door he saw from the other side. And, he was thankful, both of the guards were waiting for him.

He joined them. “What was that thing?” he asked.

“Some kind of enchanted gate. Not a very good one,” said Bright Lance. “Let us go. We don’t know when this train will leave.” He pointed to the door behind them, which Silver Compass realized was not a normal door at all. They had stepped onto what looked like small enclosed railway platform. It was a door to a train carriage, presumably.

They walked to the door easily enough. However, he could see no knob or handle or anything that would open it. He turned to ask Bright Lance what to do, but Bright Lance was looking at him.

The door opened with a hissing noise, startling them both. Night Wing took his hoof off of the small button on the side of the door. Saying nothing, he walked into the carriage. They followed him.

The carriage looked surprisingly normal. Sure, the tables and windows were too high and the benches around them too narrow but all in all it was a typical train carriage. There was another one of the black reflective things hanging on the wall, but it showed nothing. He could see a door leading to the rest of the train, but he guessed this carriage was reserved for them. They took a seat around one of the tables. Both of the windows showed nothing but grey wall.

“What kind of a creature was ‘Charles?’” he asked the guards.

“The only sentient inhabitants of the other world, ‘Earth’. They call themselves ‘humans’. You get used to them walking about after a while. Their balance is very good; they are surprisingly stable so upright. There’s very little difference visually between humans...”

Bright Lance had started explaining how humans mostly had a small range of shadings of brown as their only colours, but was interrupted by a loud hissing noise and another voice.

“Door closing.”

The door closed.

“Gah! Why does everything move by itself here?” Silver Compass asked, frustrated. “And why the mysterious voices!? Are they so proud of how they managed to get everything to move without showing a bit of enchantment that they have to announce it to the world?”

“We do not think they are able to enchant things or even use basic levitation,” said Bright Lance, “at least, we have never seen anything leaking magic, and that is difficult to conceal. Whatever they use as a come-to-life substitute is very effective and invisible. There are a lot of Griffon enchantments in the various old buildings, but none in this new building.”

“Gah,” Silver Compass said, more frustrated. Why had he not been accompanied by a full faculty? Undoubtedly the Chair of International Languages and Culture would have give his horn to see the multi-lingual sign. And a Mage, well, a Mage more inclined to academic study than a Unicorn Guard, would probably at least be willing to share his confusion.

“Look,” said Night Wing, pointing at the window with a hoof. Silver Compass realized this was the first word he had heard from him in two and half weeks. He would have said something, but he looked out the window.

The landscape was a blur. All but the distant mountain range was impossible to see properly. The start of the motion and acceleration had been so smooth he had even not noticed it. They were going fast. Certainly faster than he had ever gone in his life before. There was also a subtle pressure, now that he was paying attention, they were still accelerating. It was by far the smoothest train ride Silver Compass had ever had.

“How fast does this train go?” he asked.

“Faster than I have ever flown,” Night Wing said.

“Oh.”

The train shot forward, taking him further into the unknown.

> Enclave
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You are nearing the final destination of this train: Talon’s End Central Station,” said the mechanical voice ten minutes after their departure. “The weather is as scheduled, a pleasant 17.5 degrees Celsius—63.5 degrees Fahrenheit—with clear skies. The latest attraction is the unveiling of the monument to Interworld Co-Operation on Space Exploration. If you are here as a tourist, please visit the information center in the station for a full list of events. When disembarking please take care not to leave any baggage behind.”

“Door opening.” There was another hiss. Did the mechanism that made the door open require such a hiss? Silver Compass wondered why they would make a train that ran almost without noise and then install a loud and unpleasant door opener.

The ride had been uneventful, if much shorter than he had expected. The track wound through the hilly province and the mountains in the background had been quite picturesque even at the high speed they had been travelling. Unfortunately, the last minute had consisted of travelling through another tunnel.

Taking care not to leave any baggage behind, Silver Compass walked through the door. He was on another small railway platform. It looked identical to the one where he had boarded, except there were no cages here. There was, however, another human, wearing an elaborate green and white suit with an unfamiliar letter stitched into it.

Silver Compass did not have to wonder why the human was there, because he was holding a square white sign with Silver Compass’ cutie mark on it and looking expectantly at him.

“Hello,” Silver Compass said hesitantly, in Griffonian.

“Hello. I am Xiang. I was sent from The Palace to be your driver.” As Bright Lance had said, Xiang looked similar enough to be a brother to Charles. Perhaps his hair was a slight shade closer to black or his skin a bit more yellow, but nothing more distinctive. Silver Compass wondered if they were closely related, not that he could really guess accurately. Genetics was complex and varied widely among species.

“The palace? Does your Queen live there?”

“There have been many monarchs who stayed at The Palace. Most recently, Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Sabah. I can, of course, neither confirm nor deny that there are any at present.”

“Huh. What kind of a palace is it?” Silver Compass asked, ignoring the string of gibberish that he presumed was a name and title. Did they have many rulers who took turns at having power?

“It was the winter palace of Queen Odilla. It was auctioned shortly after the peace settlement and bought by Interworld Hospitality Limited. It is unquestionably one of the finest luxury hotels in either world.”

As he spoke, Xiang led them through the station towards a waiting carriage. It was very long, but narrower and shorter than the ones he was used to. Rather than being painted a cheerful purple or yellow it was a glossy black; it looked rather like a carriage Sombra might have ridden in. Xiang opened one of the rear doors and politely waited for them to get inside.

The inside was as small as it had looked from the outside, but very luxurious, as he’d expected of a carriage that came with an attendant. He and his guards could lie down upon the L-shaped seats, but he could not stand on them without hitting his head.

The theme of black had also been continued on the inside. Even the seats were covered with a black layer of some material. It was comfortable, but felt like nothing he had sat on before. There were glass windows everywhere, although they were tinted so that it everything looked darker and greener. There was even a sheet of glass between his seat and Xiang, who was sitting upright with his back to them.

With a rumbling noise the carriage started to move. Xiang was clearly in control, but as far as Silver Compass could see nothing was pulling it. It was the first self-moving carriage he’d ridden in, they were extremely rare in Equestria. The enchantment itself would be fairly simple, but it was fraught with potential problems. Who would be culpable if the carriage were to hit somepony? The enchanter or the driver? Not to mention the safety concerns and the cab-driver’s union. Clearly the humans had solved all these problems, somehow.

When their carriage cleared the enclosed parking area, he saw the city of Talon’s End for the first time. Tall grey buildings were everywhere, illuminated by the fading sunlight. It was not close to the scale of Manehattan, or as beautiful as Canterlot. But there were cranes and scaffolding everywhere, standing alongside incomplete buildings. Clearly, they meant Talon’s End to become a city on the same level as Manehatten. Or at least on the same scale as the big port cities of the Griffon Empire.

Their carriage was slowly moving on an asphalt road along with many others. Silver Compass guessed that rush hour was universal. Almost all of the other carriages were smaller than his, and the majority were a bright colour. Some had mirrors as windows—one-way glass, he hoped—but through the rest he could see griffons and sometimes humans controlling them. The sidewalks were also packed with humans and griffons walking. Here and there he could see a griffon flying above the crowd, perhaps in too much of a hurry to walk. Silver Compass could not see a Griffon that was not elaborately dressed.

Soon they turned down a narrow street and arrived at The Palace. It was a magnificent building, elegantly carved white stone with Prench windows, presumably imported at great cost. However, what drew Silver Compass’ eye as he stepped out was the building across the road. It was a squat grey thing, behind a high wire fence with a thick metal gate.

The building itself was not that remarkable, but the flags hanging from its gate made it stand out. They were sky-blue and white, with what looked like ears of some plant flanking a circular pattern. Inside the circular pattern was an ugly mess of blobs, like the flag designer had spilled his paint on the design and called it a day.

“What is that?” he asked Xiang, who was holding the door open for him.

“The Liaison Outpost of the United Nations.”

“United Nations?” Silver Compass asked. Was it like the United Buffalo Tribes?

“The United Nations is… well, not exactly a government of Earth. It sort of speaks collectively for the governments of Earth. But really only the Security Council members. It is fairly complicated, you’re better off asking the people you’re scheduled to meet tomorrow morning.”





His suite was magnificent. According to the brochure he had received with his key—again the flat square kind—it had once been the Royal Quarters. The decor was very typical classical Prench; the style popular among the rich and elite of every species in the world. The brochure had helpfully explained that the hotel had taken great pains to restore the guest accommodations to their original decor. The throne room, however, had been repurposed into storage space, the throne itself lost in the post-war chaos.

He wondered at the large amount of luxury. In his experience, It was not common for visiting academics. Perhaps it was because his visit was being handled by their diplomats, and they gave him the usual treatment for foreign dignitaries. If their standard policy was to use these rooms for important guests, they had certainly meant a very pointed insult towards any Imperial Diplomats that had to stay in their former palace.

They must be at least trying to impress him on some level. He had been told any reasonable expenses of his would be covered. He could have room service and it even extended to the hotel’s casino which he had been told was a sort of gambling establishment. Quite fun, according to Bright Lance. He could not imagine they gave that to every guest; just Blueblood alone would empty their coffers in a day.

He was currently eating breakfast is his dining room. It was something very similar to cornflakes; the griffon he had summoned had been very helpful in figuring out what he meant when he tried to describe cornflakes. There was even warm milk to eat them with. 

This is where the normality had ended. When he had asked for milk, he could have sworn the chef had winked at him. And indeed, when he had looked through the menu later he had found no mention of any dairy products on it. Milk had been available—for a price—in the Griffon Empire, imported from Equestria in flasks with enchantments of permanence. But he supposed Queen Odilla was not going to let a trade ship just float through the blockade.

When his cornflakes were finished he started combing his mane. Short as it was, it could still get very wild. He had been able to wash it, even though he had feared the hygienic facilities would be unusable for anything that could not stand on two legs. He was glad the hotel seemed to be suited to griffons, meaning everything was oversized for him.

Silver Compass still had two hours to himself; he had to meet Xiang in the lobby at 8 AM to be at the university at 8:30 to get an “early start”. Perhaps humans had odd sleeping schedules; he could not imagine a world where three hours after sunrise would count as “early”.

He decided to organize his effects. He had brought a large satchel, which mainly had personal things inside and one very big desk reference. He had debated how much to bring: he could probably bring an entire library and still miss a book. But from the letter it had sounded more like they were interested in the extent of Equestrian mathematical knowledge, rather than learning any particular techniques. So he had decided to travel light, which also meant he had a lot of room to bring things back.

He started pacing. After half an hour of pacing and some consideration, he put on his only tie.





Two hours of pacing and a brief ride through the city later he was at the university. It looked like a typical griffonian university from any corner of the Empire: a collection of coloured brick towers with various traditional banners hanging from them. Whatever they had done to the inside, the outside was unchanged from the traditional appearance.

Xiang held the door again, as Silver Compass and his guards exited. The entrance hall was also typical, except that there was a large green sign above the door saying “EXIT.”

Standing in the entrance hall was a mixed group. There were several humans, as well as a female griffon. He could not judge what griffons found attractive very well but she certainly was beautiful in a generic sense, with a sleek black and white look.

There was also Charles again, with a different bright tie and the same suit. Next to him were three other humans.

“Welcome again,” said Charles. “I am sorry that I could not ride with you on the train, but I had an urgent appointment. Please, let me introduce you.”

“This is Professor Tom Simpson, Deputy-Head of Mathematics, visiting from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.” He motioned to a human with grey hair and blue eyes. Tom was also wearing a suit, but a faded brown one. Silver Compass had never been much of a dresser, but it looked friendlier than Charles’ sharp black and grey. The professor twitched an arm forward, but then let it drop again after a moment’s consideration.

“This is Professor Hitoshi Yugoro, head of Mathematics and Computer Science here at Talon’s End,” he motioned to a younger—Silver Compass thought—human wearing a brown suit with a bow-tie. Yugoro gave a brief nod of his head. Silver Compass realized he could never hope to keep their names straight; they had too many alien syllables.

“And this is…” Charles paused, trying to translate, “Combined-Division-Leader Florian Müller of the United Nation’s Strategic Intelligence Taskforce.” Florian Müller was also in a suit, with a great many tiny medals pinned to it. Silver Compass would have expected at least a helmet, or some token indication that he was anything more than a bureaucrat.

“Lastly, but certainly not least, this is Torgunna Kvinnesland,” he motioned to the griffon, “official ambassador of the GDR to Earth.” Even she was fully clothed. Silver Compass was beginning to feel underdressed, but there was not anything more formal he could wear than a tie. Party clothes were more covering, but they were not exactly appropriate for an academic meeting.

Charles led the group into the university. Silver Compass noted his guards had not been introduced, or even spoken to. Canterlot nobles could be that rude, but most ponies would have at least greeted the guards. They did not appear offended; they fell in step behind him, and followed him into the building.

As they came into what he guessed was the conference room he was very relieved. At last the strangeness had started, instead of just being implied and hinted at. There was a large circular table of a light wood in the centre of the room, with chairs and glasses of water. He recognized nothing else on the table. Various devices lay on it, with wires from them splayed across the table and joined together in a white box at the center. There was one empty spot, without a device on it, he presumed it was his.

They all sat around the desk, Silver Compass’ seat was uncomfortably low—meant for a griffon clearly—but at least not the impossibly narrow things the humans sat on. His guards went to stand at the door.

“I hope you do not mind, we agreed to let General Müller have the first question,” started Charles, “he is a very busy man and can only spare a few minutes.”

“Of course,” said Silver Compass, caught a bit off guard. This was it then, he was about to make a potential dozen new discoveries in a day.

“This one respectfully asks thee if thou wouldst explain how this may be solved.” said Müller, sliding across two printed pages taking from his briefcase.

Müller’s Griffonian was in one sense the best he’d heard so far from a non-griffon. It was difficult for Silver Compass to understand, but it was exactly the language they spoke at the Imperial Court; the same Imperial Court which was many hundreds of miles away and had never hosted a human, as far as he understood the history of the GDR.

He looked at the papers. The body of the text was in Griffonian, while the notation was technically Griffonian as well its usage was more than a little unorthodox. He could understand it though.

It was two fairly simple problems. One dealt with elliptic curves, the other with retrieving two absurdly large prime numbers from their product. The elliptic curves one was a known open problem. As for the other, clearly their invitation letter proved the university here could factor numbers better than any other entity or organisation he had ever heard of, so why did they even ask?

The entire group, except for Torgunna, was staring expectantly at him. Was this a test? If he failed to provide solutions would they just tell him they were no longer interested, but thanks for coming? He couldn’t very well solve them right now in his head. He had no choice but to be honest.

“No. They’re not solvable as far as I know.”

“Thine knowledge is then certain? Not through any means, even magical?”

“Yes,” Silver Compass said. He need not have bothered specifying ‘magical’; most ponies skilled in magic disliked maths. Why plod slowly from conclusion to conclusion, when you could tweak an old spell to do amazing things with guesswork and inspiration.

Visible signs of relief ran around table. Delayed in the case of Professor Simpson, until he had had a translation.
 
“My gratitude,” said Müller getting up to leave.

“Wait, why are those two so important?” Silver Compass asked.

“Because,” started Professor Yugoro. He was silenced by a sharp glare from Müller, who was in the process of packing his briefcase. Yugoro met his gaze levelly, as far as Silver Compass could read their body language, and continued speaking.

“If you could solve those, you could do anything. We call it cryptography. It is the key on just about every digital lock, including probably your hotel room. You could open most secure doors, withdraw unlimited money from a bank, read every piece of mail of every person, whatever you wanted.”

Silver Compass was deeply curious how elliptic curves could be a key. And they were happy to explain. The meeting began in earnest. They did not bring any references, but it seemed they could summon a page of any journal ever written—including his own—onto the glass surfaces of their devices.

At one point Yugoro had wanted to make note on a particular formula, and made a perfectly printed copy appear from another device in the middle. He then proceeded to scribble on it to explain something. Silver Compass had flinched when he ruined the copy, but he quickly realized if they could produce printed text that easily they probably did not really see any reason to respect it.

The practical applications were enormous. Perfect privacy. An unforgeable seal of authenticity. Of course, magic could provide both of these but a stronger magician could just reverse the spell. On top of that, you needed highly gifted magicians on both ends.

All their algorithms for encryption assumed both parties were prepared to do a very large number of mathematical operations per letter, a process which they had explained was automated. But a simplified version would be well within the reach of a calculation device, or a more difficult to manufacture dedicated machine, like the Enigma Machine they had mentioned.

His satchel quickly filled with notes. For all that they were a different species, they were clearly academics in a familiar way. They loved knowledge. Even Simpson participated, with the help of Charles and Yugoro translating. Charles and Torgunna clearly did not know that much about the actual subject matter, but they managed to look politely interested.

“Oh, before I forget,” Charles took out a thick manuscript from his briefcase. “The entire department here worked very on hard on translating this, at my request. It is a proof of what you call Starswirl’s Unsolved Theorem. We know it as Fermat’s Last Theorem.”

“What.” said Silver Compass.

“If by the entire department, you mean I made a bunch of grad students do it then yes,” said Yugoro. “It is unpleasantly large both because Wiles, who authored it, had to introduce several new mathematical concepts to prove it and because I had to add several concepts Wiles knew but your universities would not. Griffonian, or Equestrian for that matter I think, lacks the symbols to express many of the concepts involved. I used the Earth ones and included a good appendix.”

This was rather monumentous. Leafing through it quickly, his muzzle trembling too much for choosing a precise page, he saw it would be no minor thing to publish. It had many parts, some introducing entirely new branches of mathematics, others existing discoveries applied in new ways. 

Perhaps even better that it was so large, cleaned up and published in parts, it would shoot his journal into the stratosphere. It would be the topic of discussion at every university in the world. Every issue would be. The room seemed to dim some.

“Are you okay?” asked Charles, concerned. “Perhaps we should break for lunch.”





The humans were standing around, holding a paper plate with food in the one hand and eating with the other. They had just walked to the foodcart, brought in by a human in a chef’s hat, and put things on their plates with silver tongs from the serving dishes.

After some consideration, Silver Compass decided not to join them. Eating from a plate while standing would require some tricky balancing and being about half as tall as them standing would make conversation awkward; rather he decided to take a plate back to the table. When he reached the foodcart he realized he was not sure how they expected him to use the tongs; he had not been offered an opportunity to wash his hooves.

He carefully picked up a pair with his mouth and started looking at the food. It was all tiny pieces with little wooden sticks in them. Curiously there were two large silver platters, with mostly identical food on them put on clearly opposite sides of the cart. He did not know what the difference between them was. Both smelled strange in different ways, but neither smelled like meat. Not that he could hope to identify every processed meat variety—and the griffons had many—by smell.

While he hovered indecisively, Torgunna approached. She took a small pouch from a pile in the middle of the cart, tore it to reveal a wet cloth and wiped her talons. Then she grabbed the tongs and picked up food from the left plate.

'Oh, that is how it is done,' he realized. He had noticed that the humans had favoured the right plate. Clearly, the left had meat in it and the humans were probably vegetarians. They had no talons or other natural weapons after all.

He grabbed some things that vaguely resembled spring rolls from the right plate. Adding some boiled eggs, what looked like savoury cakes, and a bit of salad made a basic lunch. As he turned around he noticed Simpson pointing at him with a startled expression and asking Charles something in the human language.

‘It is not very polite to point at an etiquette mistake like that,’ he thought, putting down the tongs.

“Don’t eat that!” Charles broke into a strange staggered gait, presumably to reach him quicker. Silver Compass had thought their normal way of walking looked weird.

“Why?”

“It is from Earth!” Seeing that he was confused, Charles elaborated. “I don’t know exactly what will happen to you, but if you were a griffon it would probably be kidney failure or liver failure.”

“What failure?”

“Failure of the blood cleaning organs. We have a similar protein structure. Your digestive system can break them down into peptides and amino-acids because those enzymes are generic. These would be absorbed in whatever your equivalent of a small-intestine is. However we have only three amino-acids in common. You’d be dumping highly soluble gunk in your bloodstream.”
 
“So… human food is poison to us and vice versa?” Silver Compass had not really understood the technical explanation, and he did not really care to. It sounded very involved.

“No, not really. Sugars and starches are fine. Just nothing with protein, even plant protein.” Charles grabbed the tongs and quickly put together the same arrangement from the other platter. His hands were amazingly dexterous, especially combined with the reach his long arms gave him.

“Thank you,” Silver Compass accepted the new plate in return for the inedible one. “Are you a sort of doctor?”

“Hah, no. I was working here during the food crisis, I had to pick up a functional knowledge of digestive systems pretty quickly.”

“Food crisis?”

“Queen Odilla decided to extend the blockade to rainclouds, making every harvest fail. She knew our food was inedible and figured we’d let the province starve or surrender it back to her. She didn’t know why the food was inedible though, and starches kept immediate starvation from being a problem. Synthesizing amino acids was difficult under such pressure, but we had a lot of resources and thankfully griffons have fewer essential amino acids than humans. We were just starting to bring out flavoured versions of the nutritional paste when she got bored with the idea.”

Silver Compass doubted she had gotten bored. As the blockade continued, the sheer amount of effort to turn away every bit of moisture from such a large area would have become impossible to maintain. Especially for griffons, who were much less gifted at weather magic than pegasi.

“In truth, she could not have done us a better favour. When your former leader does their best to starve you old loyalties tend to fade quickly.”

There was a buzzing noise from Charles’ clothes. Charles excused himself and left the room again. Silver Compass did not quite know what to make of it, except that it had happened several times so far. He went to sit down at the table, choosing a seat near Torgunna.

“You are the ambassador, right?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“What is that like?”

“It is quite nice, really. I don’t really do much ambassadorial work, like negotiating treaties and things like that. Mostly I travel their world meeting important humans and posing for photographs. It’s a bit surprising that you do not know me, I didn’t think Odilla’s blockade would be that effective. The human media promised me my place in history was more secure than anyone currently living.”

“Why?”

“I was the first griffon in space.” She used the Griffonian word for an open area, but he did not think that was quite what she meant. “All part of my job convincing humans we aren’t monsters directly out of their nightmares.”

“I imagine it must be difficult to build relationships after a war.”

“I wish there had been a real war with equal sides, it would have made it much easier. The Imperial Army scared the humans very badly. Their governments threw just about everything they had at forcing them back and failed. Humans almost never act in unison; they’re divided into many nations who at best distrust each other. But when united in a common purpose they have a terrifying amount of resources. So imagine how scared they were when they could not even hold the Imperial Army back with all their might. Their world is lonelier than ours, they had never met another sapient species. Then their first encounter was an unstoppable army pouring across their world.”

Silver Compass was unpleasantly reminded of the changeling attack on Canterlot. He’d never heard of a changeling, except as vague legends, and suddenly there had been a great many in his office. If the Royal Guard had not pulled together and defeated them at the last minute—he still was not sure how that happened; they had been losing badly—he imagined there would have been widespread panic across Equestria fairly quickly.

“It scared the humans enough to use really horrible weapons which instantly swung the balance of power back into their favour,” Torgunna continued, “Although, if you think the Silent Province is bad, you should see the other side of the portal. The Central African Republic was entirely destroyed and large parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo were devastated. You won’t know what they are, but that is a much larger area than the Silent Province.”

Not sure what to say, Silver Compass redirected his attention to food. The toothpicks in the pieces were clearly very useful if one had fingers or talons, but were proving quite problematic for him. Spitting out a half-chewed piece of toothpick he recalled something he had been told as he was travelling through the Silent Province.

“An administrator from the Griffon Empire told me you were all enslaved.”

“Hah, she is not entirely wrong. You’ve seen their devices, right? That is just a very small part of what they have to offer. All the information and entertainment you could imagine, at your fingertips. Instant communication close enough to a sort of species-wide telepathy, news spreads across their entire world within minutes. And they have an incredibly high standard of life due to their efficient manufacturing processes. Things that we used to save up for over months now cost a few hour’s wages. Magic can do almost anything they can do, and usually do it better, but it could never be as efficient and cheap.”

Silver Compass was used to living on the pay of an academic. While he certainly was not poor, he was nowhere close to rich. He tried to image the price of everything falling a hundredfold. He was sure he would run out of things to buy fairly soon.

“Perhaps this would mean nothing if we could not afford their currencies, but due to the blockade we are the only source they have for anything magical. And there is insatiable demand at any price we charge, far more than a few hundred thousand of us can provide. The GDR is, per capita, one of the richest members of the United Nations. Only the most extreme of us would be prepared to give all that up and become again the poorest province in a large empire. The invisible threat of them cutting off our supply of luxury goods is far more effective than chains would be.”





Silver Compass was seated at an elegantly carved oak desk in his hotel room, going through the notes he had made again. He had spent most of the rest of the meeting getting as much detail as he could of their proof of Starswirl’s Unsolved Theorem. He would need to consult with several experts back home just to help him reformat it for publication and to understand it fully. It was clear their mathematical understanding, at least in the field of number theory, was leaps and bounds ahead of Equestria’s.

It was not the only thing his mind was going over. At the end of the first day he had had to pose for photographs in front of a bunch of flags with them. He’d been told they were to be given to the media. Charles had said they could not have hoped to keep Silver Compass isolated from them forever and indeed there had been a swarm of reporters at the university gates attempting to get a glimpse of him through the tinted glass of Xiang’s carriage.

However, just after the photography session Charles had sought out Night Wing and given him a brown paper package. Night Wing had silently put it away, and Silver Compass was very curious to know what was inside. He was wondering if he should ask Night Wing, or if he should just mind his own business.

He was interrupted by a piercing cry that tore through the dusk. It sounded vaguely like a wolf howling, but much louder. Silver Compass wondered if it was a thing the humans occasionally did just after sunset. Canterlot loved to have various noisy ceremonies around sunset and sunrise, but usually they managed to not sound like the world was ending. Annoyed, he turned back to his notes.

Fifteen minutes later there was a sharp sizzling. The air felt charged, and not with static electricity. He was not a unicorn, but he could still feel the vibrations of the magical field in his bones. The room was humming like a bell as the shape of the world shifted. A teleport spell, he realized, one across a huge distance. His guards jumped to stand between him and the centre of the disturbance.

With a thunderous crackle a large golden griffon appeared in the room. He immediately turned to Silver Compass, glaring between his two guards. He looked savage and predatory in a way that the mathematician found hard to pin down. He suddenly realized why; it was because the griffon was unclothed.

“How did you get in here?” Bright Lance demanded.

“Hah. They can steal our palace, but it is still our palace and its passages are known to my mother and I.” The griffon threw his head back and sneered. “But I don’t have time to bandy words. I am here for you, Academic.”

“Me?” Silver Compass edged back, but his desk was against a wall.

“You. We were persuaded by Celestia to allow you. This permission is withdrawn. You will surrender whatever you have gained from them and leave. Their ridiculous flying train runs during the night.”

“No!” Silver Compass shouted. “Give up a proof of Starswirl’s Unsolved Theorem? Are you mad?”

“I don’t give an eggshard about whoever’s theorem. We allowed you—just you—because you are an Earth Pony Mathematician. You could teach them nothing dangerous and you could gain nothing dangerous from them. Imagine my surprise when you managed to gain a technique that would give an incredible advantage to any army using it to communicate. Unbreakable encoding.”

“I think it is time for you to leave,” said Bright Lance firmly.

“Oh, I intend to. The general alarm has been sounding for many minutes now; their forces are mobilizing. They’re more skittish than deer during hunting season. Any little disturbance, like an unauthorized series of teleports, and they rush to defend the border. But I will have those notes first.”

“No,” said Silver Compass and Bright Lance together.

“Please,“ the griffon starting pacing, trying to keep a moderate tone. “You have no idea what you have there. You think their knowledge will help you. But there is a terrible price for using it; you can not wield it without accepting their worldview. Look at what happened to the griffons who they ensnared.”

“I understand how you may be confused. Mathematics is not like magic. It is pure. It can not be tainted by the inventor or wielder,” Silver Compass tried to keep his tone reasonable and his body language nonthreatening. Perhaps he could convince the griffon to leave without violence.

“Hah, you think it will stop at a few academic theorems. Their encoding systems will spread across our world like wildfire. Encoding machines will follow, then decoding machines will follow to break the codes. Soon every nation will be banging at our door, demanding that we let the humans give them even more powerful machines.”

“Perhaps,” Silver Compass said. “But that sounds like your problem, not mine. Maybe you should not try and keep them bottled up like that.”

“We have been doing you a great favour with our policy of containment! Their knowledge would completely change your economies. You would have to accept their means of mass-production, because even if you remained traditional your neighbours would outpace you very quickly.”

“Would that be so bad?” Silver Compass asked. He would rather like a large drop in prices. He would no longer need to ration coal during winter or pay the printers through the nose for every printed draft of his journal. And best of all, he would no longer have to deal with the supply room clerk constantly hinting that his lecture-style made the students use an inordinate amount of ink and foolscap.

“Yes! What do you think will happen to the great many suddenly without employment? I was on the other side of that portal. There is incredible misery and suffering. Impoverished nations fighting endless bloody wars over scraps. If you’re useful, humans are your greatest friends. If you’re useless to them they’ll let you starve without a second thought even if you are a fellow human. We declared by Royal Decree that such injustice can not stand! We will unify them into our just empire!”

The howling had not stopped. Now it was joined by a series of incredibly loud bangs followed by the sound of a terrible rushing wind. It sounded like the Wonderbolts practicing, except it was much much louder. It sounded like something was pushing through the air with brute force rather using magic to make it yield.

“If you cause the war to be restarted….” Bright Lance warned him.

“Please. They do this every other month. It is a show of force. That is not how it sounds when they really mean war. I was there, when they first attacked. Mere hours after we told their diplomats we would not have peace unless they yielded completely. Endless explosions from a clear sky without a hint of warning. The flying things come later.”

The howling noise had been joined by a chorus of nearer, similar, noises now. Silver Compass could swear it sounded like they were getting closer and closer.

“I spent two weeks beneath a shield there, as part of the first expedition. They rained endless fury down. Every day we thought it could not get worse, but every day it did. If they’d had an ounce of subtlety they’d have disrupted the shield, but they only know brute force. We were more than a little delirious from exhaustion when my mother finally brought in the Imperial Army to reinforce us. Although, wisely, she left half of them on the other side of the portal as a rear-guard. If she had not had that wisdom, we would have lost much more than two provinces. That stopped all but one of their abominations from coming through to wreak havoc.”

“You forced them in a corner and terrified them! Of course they lashed out!” Silver Compass’ annoyance at the griffon’s bias finally came to a head. “They have been nothing but kind to me and your former subjects and they truly care about knowledge for knowledge’s sake. Did you even speak to them, before announcing that they were part of your empire?”

“You don’t understand!” The Griffon Prince shouted. “They have not stopped attacking us. They do anything that could hurt us, just to hurt us. They forge our currency by the cartload and dump it near the border where smugglers steal it. Then when we enact harsh measures to save our economy, they criticize us for ‘a brutal and unfair justice system’ and offer asylum to our criminals. They steal away more of our populace every year!”

He squatted, in preparation to jump at them. “Enough. If you are so taken in by them, I shall have to use force.” Bright Lance’s horn glowed and Night Wing shifted. Silver Compass tried again to lean further back against the desk, but it did not budge.

There was a lot of shouting outside the door. Suddenly, it shattered, sending splinters of wood flying through the room. A squad of what looked very much like giant changelings jumped onto the griffon.




> Homeward Bound
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You are being held captive upon suspicion of having committed a crime. You will not be harmed. You have the right to see a judge within seventy-two hours. You will have the opportunity to contact friends or family...”

The guards, or whatever exactly they were, had very quickly subdued the griffon. For one, there were a great many of the guards. For another, he had put only token resistance, probably realizing he was caught.

One of the guard-things—the leader, Silver Compass guessed—had faced the captive griffon and removed his face-covering helmet with green lenses. Silver Compass had been relieved to see a normal griffon’s face beneath. The guard was currently taking the time to recite a speech. The way he intoned the words made it clear it was something he repeated often.

“You have the right to be represented by a champion of law. You have the right to medical treatment....”

Finally, when the speech was finished, the rest of the guards—still wearing their helms—escorted their captive out. He had said nothing in response, merely sneered at them.

“You will need to give a statement,” the unhelmeted guard said. Whether he meant Silver Compass, Bright Lance and Night Wing, or all of them was not entirely clear.

“A statement of what?” Bright Lance asked. He had relaxed from his aggressive stance, but he was still standing defensively in front of the academic.

“Just describe what happened, in as much detail as you can. I’ll write it down, you read it and sign that it is the truth. The assailant is a pretty important figure, but he doesn’t have actual diplomatic immunity. It’ll still become a tangled mess of politics, so we really need to keep the evidence straight.”

“Okay, that sounds simple.” Silver Compass squeezed between his protectors.

“Perhaps take a seat. This could take some time.”

“Oh.” Silver Compass had had a long day and was still feeling drained with the stress of the evening.

“We really need to get everything straight. I won’t have him slipping through the net because….”

There was a sudden squawking noise from somewhere in the griffon’s black armour. He paused and took a communication device of some sort from it. He glanced at it, grimaced, and held it up to his beak.

“Mister Campbell.”

Silver Compass could not follow the resulting conversation. He could identify the other party as Charles by his voice, but he was not speaking in Griffonian. The language he was speaking sounded like the snatches of the human language he had heard so far. However, he had never heard it spoken so harshly before. It was interesting in an abstract sense, how they turned the teeth-based constants into almost spitting noises and gave more dramatic swing to the vowels. 

The conversation was fairly short. The griffon gave mostly one word replies in the same language.

“Correction,” the griffon said after putting the device away, “you do not need to give a statement. You will be given an escort to a new, more secure hotel, with a different security detail. I am told to extend you the personal apologies of our government and their assurance this will not happen again.”

Silver Compass packed up his suitcase while waiting. His notes had become a little scattered in the fight, but none were lost. After a while there was a knock at the door. Or, rather, against the doorframe which no longer held a door.

Not waiting for a response, a group of humans strode in. They were, he assumed, human guards. They were still wearing a ridiculous amount of clothes; he was not sure how they could be expected to do any actual guarding dressed like a group of nobles. They were almost completely covered by clothes dyed with an assortment of drab green and brown blobs. He would have thought it was camouflage—in a city no less—except they were wearing bright blue helmets.

“Silver Compass, Bright Lance and Night Wing?” the human with the most tiny medallions asked. “Lieutenant Osborne. We’re your new security. First we’ll escort you to the Space Needle Hotel.”

Silver Compass picked up his bag. Bright Lance looked at the group skeptically.

“How exactly will it be any better than the previous guards?”

“They were GDR police. We’re UN Peacekeepers,” Osborne tapped his blue helmet.

“And, are you more elite guards than the griffons, or what?”

“We have some new things that will be fairly surprising for them if the Empire outright attacks us. But griffons would be better at actually engaging any threats that approach. Magic, even their basic innate magic, seems mostly immune to physical force wielded by non-magicals.”

“And this is an improvement… how?”

“We are empowered representatives of the United Nations of Earth acting in an official capacity. If they attack you—and by extension us—it will not be another border scuffle with the GDR. It will be outright war, and this time round there’ll be a bit more than single damaged bomber pushed through a hostile portal, loaded with what we had laying around from the end of the Cold War. The latest generation of fast-launching ballistic missiles with MIRV warheads would seriously ruin their day.”

“According to the treaty you agreed that none of those things were to be placed in the GDR.” Bright Lance narrowed his eyes.

“As agreed there are none in the GDR. The International Strategic Reserves are all on the other side of the portal. The Immediate Response Reserve is on the Earth-side of the portal station. But they can be deployed cross-portal and launched very quickly. Don’t worry, they won’t try anything. You’re as safe as houses while we stand guard.”





The carriage he had ridden in stood outside a tall narrow building. The building was a very modern design: a tall spire of steel and glass among many lesser others. Row upon row of sleek carriages stood next to the one he had arrived in. It made for a sharp contrast, as the carriage he had come in was large and clunky. It was painted the same drab colours as the humans wore, with the same bright white logo painted on its doors.

He was no soldier, certainly. But even he could see that it clearly was not a dignified vehicle for diplomats to cruise through a city. He had had more than enough room on the inside, despite his guards and the half-dozen humans. It was completely unadorned and with no accommodation made for comfort. Clearly, its only goal was to transport as many soldiers as possible as quickly as possible over presumably rough terrain. At least, judging by the large wheels.

After he exited through the rear of the vehicle, the human guards were not flanking him as he had expected. Instead, they moved significantly in front and behind of him, and took fixed positions. When he moved a certain amount they would rearrange themselves into new positions.

Inside the hotel the decor was a continuation of the outside. Everything was sharp and angled, in heavy black against clean white walls. The only highlighting colour was silver. Lieutenant Osborne approached the front desk and talked with one of the humans behind the counter. If the sudden influx was unusual, the clerk gave no sign.

A brief conversation later, Lieutenant Osborne returned.

“We’re on the top floor.” He walked to what was clearly a bank of elevators, and Silver Compass followed. The elevator dinged just as he arrived. The inside of the elevator car was finished entirely in mirrors and polished steel, with a small rail surrounding the perimeter for the humans to hold. When they were inside the doors closed and the elevator started moving for no reason he could discern.

“Where’s the attendant?” he asked.

“There isn’t one. There aren’t even any buttons, it’s one of those creepy ultra-modern griffon designs.”

Silver Compass could think of a lot of words that would describe the griffon approach to architecture. Stuffy, traditional, solid were some. But creepy and modern were not. The elevator door dinged and opened. A glowing yellow line was reaching away from the door along the wall until it reached an intersection where it turned right.

They followed the line. Two intersections later they approached series of doors. They were identical to the many other black doors, except for the fact that the glowing line forked to touch them, and then stopped. He walked closer and the middle-door swung inwards.

“Your room. We take the two others. Sergeant Hernandez and Private Riley will stand guard inside your room as the first shift.”

The group broke up when he spoke. Two of the humans came to flank him now, the rest went into the other rooms. He went inside, where the theme was continued: black, silver and white. Briefly exploring, he found a study, two bedrooms and a bathroom. He was very tired and the bed was surprisingly comfortable in spite of not looking the least bit fluffy.





“Good morning Silver Compass,” a soft voice said. “You have a call from… Charles Campbell... would you like to accept it?”

“Bluh?” Silver Compass said, not entirely awake. “What is the time?”

“It is now… eight... minutes past… nine. Would you like to accept the call?”

“Yes!” he jerked awake—he had overslept badly. For a moment he wondered where he was, then he remembered. The entire bedroom was lit by a gentle white light that seemed to come directly out of the ceiling. In one of the walls he could see Charles, looking at him with a worried look on his face.

After briefly considering the notion of a hole in the wall, he realized an image was being projected somehow.

“I am sorry to have woken you. I just wanted to let you know we have postponed today’s conference. Please take the day and rest. And again, our apologies for the incident.”

“No harm was done. But what will happen to the Prince?”

“Oh, he will spend a day or two in jail and then he will see a judge. He’ll be given a chance to explain why he broke our laws, and having no explanation or defence he’ll be found guilty. He might spend a year or two in prison, probably more if he keeps his usual sneering attitude and doesn’t show remorse. But more likely his mother will attempt to make restitution of some sort. He certainly won’t bother you again.”

There was a faint beeping noise and Charles’ eyes flicked downwards.

“I have another call, but before I go are there any more questions you have?”

“No,” Silver Compass said and watched as Charles’ face dissolved into a white piece of wall. More awake now, he took stock of the room. Night Wing was standing still as statue in the corner closest to his bed, staring fixedly at a point to the left of the door.

Looking at the point, he saw a human guard. It was not one he recognized: the guard wore an identical uniform to the others but his skin was a dark brown. He was staring at Night Wing and was standing equally still. Silver Compass thought they might be competing to see who could move the least. He was tempted to stay and see who would win, but decided breakfast was more important.

Standing up and approaching the door he heard a human talking.

“...no, humans are actually omnivores, but that wasn’t why the dinner was a total disaster.”

“Oh, what went wrong then?” said a voice that sounded very much like Bright Lance. Silver Compass was glad they seemed to be getting along now, in spite of the somewhat frosty start.

“Well, it was Easter. That’s a… sort of festive time on Earth. And there’s a traditional candy, chocolate molded to look like an egg with a hard sugar coating. I brought some as a gift.”

Bright Lance laughed loudly.

“Yes, you get it. Their faces when I showed them how you break the eggs apart to eat them,” the human was also laughing. “I don’t think they could have been more horrified if I stripped naked at the dinner table.”

Silver Compass had edged a little too close to the door while listening, causing it to slide open. Bright Lance was sitting at a table talking with a human guard standing at the door. There were various parts of an extensive breakfast spread around the table and the human was holding a mug in one hand. Both jerked at the sound.

“Good morning,” said Bright Lance, sitting more upright and making his face more neutral.

“Morning Professor,” said the human. “I hope you slept well.”

“Morning,” he greeted them. “Where did you get the breakfast?”

“There is a thing on the table,” said Bright Lance, “you touch it and after a while your choice shows up in that dumbwaiter.” He pointed at a small door in the wall. “I ordered tea for you,” Bright Lance used magic to pour it and push the cup towards an open seat.

Silver Compass sat down. The tea tasted exactly the same as the tea at The Palace. It was probably from the same source. There was one of the display things embedded into the glass of the table. Currently it was showing a picture of what looked like hay bacon and eggs. Bright Lance motioned swiping a hoof across it. Silver Compass did that, and the picture changed to pancakes.

He did the action backwards and saw bacon and eggs again.

“This is fun!” he flipped through more dishes. Brief experimentation and he figured out that tapping sharply on one of the pictures would bring up a message asking if he would to order it. He purchased one bowl of cornflakes at a price of T20.95, whatever currency that was.

“Try pressing down upon the circle and asking it a question,” the guard suggested from the corner. He could not see how he could press something that was glass and unbendable, but he covered it with the front of his hoof. After a second the entire display changed.

“What…” he had not actually had a question prepared and grabbed the first thing that came to mind, “is the square root of sixteen.”

There was a brief pause.

“The square root of sixteen is four,“ was written on the screen and read out loud by the same type of distorted voice he had heard at the border control. 

“How.... how did it do that?” he asked, looking at Bright Lance. Bright Lance shrugged. He looked at the guard.

“No idea. I’m not a IT guy.”

“What is the square root of one hundred and twenty eight?” Silver Compass asked the thing, curious to see exactly how smart it was.

The same brief pause.

“The square root of 128 is approximately 11.31371,” it read back dully in the same tone, as if it had not just done a fairly difficult set of approximations in less than a second.

“What is the square root of two thousand and forty-eight?”

“The square root of 2048 is approximately 42.24833.” Silver Compass had no way of checking; he had not memorized the square roots past 128. But he somehow doubted it would be wrong, especially after mental estimation backed up the integral part.

“What is the square root of… one million nine thousand and three.”

“The square root of 1 009 003 is approximately 1 004.49144.” It had paused exactly the same amount of time before answering.

There was a ding from the dumbwaiter. Presumably his cornflakes had arrived. He could not care less.

“What is the square root of 13 244 839 239?” he asked, mimicking the device’s way of reading numbers as individual digits.

“The square root of 13 244 839 239 is approximately 115 086.22524.”

“What are you?” he asked. The device did not answer; he had not pressed the circle that made it answer. It could not be operating on any normal principle of calculations: it would be spewing reams of paper not to mention calculating so fast would it literally cause the paper to catch fire. It could not be a calculating machine: there was no way gears could turn that quickly and even if they could, it would need a vast wall of them.

“Can… can I keep this?” he asked the human.

“Sure, if you can rip it out of the table. The hotel will just bill the government for it.”

Silver Compass tapped the table with a forehoof. As far as he could see the display was part and parcel of the table.

“Also, it won’t work that well outside the GDR. It probably needs an internet connection,” the guard said hurriedly when he saw Silver Compass was seriously contemplating how to physically remove it from the table. “You can just buy a similar tablet anyway. It’s around two hundred Talons.”

“That’s only ten times the price of a bowl of cornflakes!”

“No, it’s ten times the price of a bowl of cornflakes when you order first-class room service. Everything is marked up like ten times.”

Silver Compass did some brief mental maths and tried to ignore exactly how large his hotel bills were. “You have a device that can calculate pretty much any square root, and you sell it for that little?”

“Well, it can do more...”

“Show me!”

The guard came over, somewhat reluctantly.

There was a sudden beeping noise and the display changed again. Inside he could see Professor Yugoro standing and facing him. Next to him were two more humans in their blue helmets.

“Hello, Silver Compass?” he asked. “I came to see if you needed a new copy of Wiles’ proof.”

Silver Compass could hear his voice from the display and at the same time muffled from the other side of the door. Imposed on the image of the visitor were two pictures, one green showing a door opening and one red with an X. He tapped the green one and the door slid open.

Yugoro walked in, and paused when he saw Silver Compass sitting next to Bright Lance and the human guard. Night Wing and the other guard had come to stand behind Silver Compass, but he had not noticed when.

“Four more bodyguards after the ones outside?” Yugoro asked. “Well, certainly you’re secure now.”

“Never mind that! How does this thing work?”

“Oh, that’s just a touch screen built into the table with an android variant, some custom theming and apps linked into the hotel’s network for controlling the lights and so on.”

“How does it calculate square roots!?”

“Probably some iterative method? Depends on which app you’re in.”

“No, look, it found some really large ones,” he pointed at result which had stayed on the screen.

“Oh, that’s Google’s built-in calculator. I am not sure how it works, probably just javascript. It’s good if you need basic things but there are better ones for calculating. That one probably can’t even accurately handle numbers larger than two to the power of sixty-four.”

“Well, how can a piece of glass calculate anything?” Silver Compass decided to start with the easy questions that did not rely on too many assumed bits of knowledge and would not have him deluged with incomprehensible terms.

“It’s not just a glass display. There is a silicon chip behind it. Silicon is a semiconductor, meaning it can easily switch between states. Specifically, a crystal is formed with specific patterns that switch between two states, representing a binary numbering system. Probably in this case a mantissa and an exponent, both stored as binary numbers. These are then sent through a series of carefully manipulated flaws in the crystal that effectively performs calculations and change the state to a new number.”

This began a long, complex series of explanations. Finally, he could understand how it worked. It required him to accept some pretty radical thoughts on the nature of electricity and metals. And it required him to accept that humans could manipulate matter on the scale of a micrometers and sell the results for a ridiculously low price.

“All in all, they’re pretty useful things,” Yugoro concluded.

“Yes, I imagine a satchel-sized device that can calculate just about everything, record perfectly a library’s worth of information and provide access to the grand total of human knowledge would be pretty useful.”

“Exactly! There’s a lot of demand. They’re churned out by the million. And mass-production really helps to bring the price down.”

“The guard said they would not work outside the GDR.”

“Eh, no. They’ll work. That one thing you were using a bit back won’t work, along with all their best features. Setting up a GSM network to enable them to work fully isn’t exactly hard, we have covered most of the Earth with one by now.”

“And the only thing standing between Equestria and crates full of these tablets is the Empire?”

“A few minor organizational hurdles, but yes, easily solvable if the Empire grants passage.”

Silver Compass had never really cared for politics. In spite of—or because of—editing an international journal he had taken a very neutral and disinterested view. However, right now, he felt very much that a change in the policies of the Empire would be a good idea. He had met the Prince who was in line for the throne, and his impression had been less than favourable to say the least. Perhaps even an altogether change in the leading family then; he had heard of more reasonable factions in court.

“Please don’t tell me you ponies will be as obsessed as the griffons are with making every surface a touchscreen, “ said Yugoro, interrupting Silver Compass’ thoughts. “I think I speak for all humans when I say a bathroom mirror should remain a normal mirror.”





The meetings continued. Charles had not attended another one; it seemed there were too many demands on his time. Torgunna had departed as well, for some ceremony or another on Earth. Between Silver Compass and the other two other professors they slowly mapped out the various branches of their respective knowledge.

It seemed they did not, in fact, know everything; they counted far more open problems. After all, the larger an area their knowledge covered, the larger its edge must be and it was not an area that overlapped Equestrian knowledge perfectly. They vastly overstretched Equestria in number theory, calculus and most of all statistics.

But, he was glad, their knowledge of what they termed “non-euclidian” geometry was remarkably primitive. He was even able to give them, among other things, a new class of manifolds that they reported would be very useful in mathematical physics.

“This is why an exchange of ideas is so important,” said Yugoro, translating for Simpson. “We both know things of value to the other, and exchanging them will provide much gain at very little cost, especially compared to independent reinvention.”

“Yes, definitely. I will be making note of this in the editorial section.” Silver Compass had not yet figured out if the flowery speech was a quirk of the translation or how Simpson actually talked.

“All in all, it was a pleasure to have met you. From both Simpson and myself. We will try and keep in touch, as much as possible through the blockade. Our governments are already as favourable as they could be to more interaction, but we will certainly use our influence to keep them this way. Fare well.”

“Fare well,” he said in response. It was not idiomatically correct for Griffonian, but it seemed suitable enough as a parting phrase.





He did not travel alone to the train. The human guards—peacekeepers they called themselves—had not left his side since the attack. They had been constantly watching him in shifts.

“We aren’t going to go right up to their gates. That would probably not help matters which have been pretty tense since the last scare. The fighter planes turned away right at the border when the police broke down your door.”

“Nevermind that they started it, they’re still pretty angry about it,” Sergeant Hernadez added.

“Yes, we will escort you through most of the no-mans land. If they are willing to attack a diplomatic envoy in a hotel room they won’t be scared to arrange an unfortunate accident.”

The train compartment was not the same one he had ridden in before either. It was considerably bigger, with more chairs and tables. It was much the same otherwise, a part of the same impossibly fast and impossibly smooth ride.

At the train station they disembarked onto a large empty platform. For the first time he could see along the side of train properly. It was smooth and white, like the door he had briefly seen on his ride in. Its mechanism was covered, so he could not see what made it work.

There must be individual cars, because he could see doors all along the train, but the couplers between them were also covered by the same hull. Looking back and forth the majority of the train seemed dedicated to cargo, judging by the large square doors that were clearly meant for goods.

The train moved off again, leaving him with his Human and Equestrian guards. It was even eerier watching it from the platform: there were no hisses or thunking noises, it just departed with a slight hum.

Lieutenant Osborne led them down a ramp at the end of the stairway. They came to a hallway with a thick metal door in the front. It was grey concrete harshly illuminated by glowing tubes on the ceiling. The Lieutenant stood in front of the door and waved a key he had around his neck at it. A second door slammed shut behind them. After five seconds of Silver Compass reminding himself the previous time had gone fine, the door in front opened up, sliding sideways into the wall. The door behind them remained closed.

The room he could now see had row upon row of the troop carrying vehicles parked in neatly demarked lines. Armory, he realized after a short period of time. Each vehicle was completely identical to the one next to it, down to its blobby camouflage. There were several different types, including one with a closed top and a very long tube sticking out the front.

The human guards split up into three groups, meant for three vehicles. He, Bright Lance, Night Wing and Lieutenant Osborne were in one, with Hernandez sitting behind the wheel. With a rumbling noise it juddered and started moving. Its motion was not smooth and comfortable, but it was certainly functional.

They proceeded to drive through the storage area, with his vehicle in the middle of their caravan. They slowly made their way past the rows of machines lying in wait. The machines seemed to become larger the farther their party went along; the ones at the end would dwarf any carriage. They stood on tiny wheels and had huge metal wings. He thought they were small airships, but he could not see where they obtained their buoyancy from. Certainly nothing that big and made of heavy metal could hope to glide without consuming a massive amount of magic.

Finally they drove into another of the double-door corridors. When it opened to let them through he saw harsh sunlight. Celestia’s sun, even so far from Equestria. He looked around, trying to position himself. They were coming out of the mountain range that surrounded Talon’s End. Far off to his left he could see the building and the statue that had welcomed him.

As their caravan picked up speed, the ride became less comfortable, but not unbearably so. Soon they were far away from the exit. He wondered what Bright Lance made of these as military equipment.

“These would be very handy for our border posts,” Bright Lance was remarking to the Lieutenant, answering Silver Compass’ thoughts.

“Why? Your, erm, Pegasi can easily outfly them?”

“They would be torn apart without other guards to support them against, say, the Griffons. We could only really hold them back with a combined force of Earth Ponies reinforced with Unicorns with Pegasi covering them from above. This would enable much quicker deployment.”

“Well, they’re basically armoured four-by-fours painted green. Not really a classified military technology, you could buy as many as you want.”

A voice sharply said something from a box next to the driver, in a foreign language. The vehicles stopped suddenly.

“Stay seated,” Lieutenant Osborne ordered as he exited the vehicle. Silver Compass looked around for the cause, and saw Bright Lance looking upward. He looked upward as well, and saw a group of quickly descending shapes. Griffon Soldiers.

With a set of sharp thuds they landed next to the vehicles, surrounding Silver Compass and his party. Silver Compass could not help but notice that their claws tore rifts in the grass as they landed.

“Run out of flying abominations have you?” the lead one spat at Lieutenant Osborne. He was wearing full battle armour, down to the set of sharp metal blade on the wings. Stretching his memory Silver Compass recalled this Griffon: he was the administrator of the bordering province who had been so rude to him. Of course, as an administrator he would also be a regional military commander.

“We are returning a guest. Having been charged with his safekeeping we felt an escort would be wise,” said the Lieutenant. The other humans acted tense: they were all holding their metal clubs pretty tightly. But they were holding them in a pointing motion at the Griffons, clearly not as aggressive as holding them upright to strike.

“Haven’t you learned by now those things only sting us,” the lead Griffon gestured at the human weapon with a bladed wing.

“They sting when they shoot lead and copper. We learn from our mistakes. These, “ Lieutenant Osborne jerked his weapon, “will shoot bullets made of cold iron.”

“Well, we are glad. We always teach it is dishonourable to kill the unarmed and the helpless. A lesson you could do well to learn,” the leader flared his wings. The squad behind him copied his aggressive stance.

“And we are empowered peacekeepers acting on behalf of the Security Council. Attack us and per the Bern Treaty you will be at immediate war with the one hundred and ninety-seven member states of the United Nations.”

“Wrong. We will be at war with exactly one wayward province, and once we control it you can rage and shout declarations of war as much as you like at a closed portal.”

The humans remained in the same posture. But something in their small eyes changed to be much colder. Silver Compass thought that he was grateful that at least he had seen a solution for Starswirl’s Unsolved theorem in his life.

“How courteous,” said Bright Lance, standing up on the seat next to Silver Compass. “Queen Odilla cares so much for our safety that she sends her best soldiers to escort us home. Wise too, as the Princesses take a dim view when the safety of their subjects is endangered. Just when Night Wing has departed to Canterlot, carrying the message of a successful visit, you arrive to make up the shortfall in our security.”





The trip home had been uneventful. The Griffons at the airship dock had only given a token protest when Bright Lance refused them permission to search the party’s luggage. Three weeks of boredom had almost been welcome, after all the excitement. He had spent the time planning the first of a series of articles to take the center piece in his journal. And he wrote what he felt was a stirring editorial that utterly condemned the Griffon Empire.

At the airship dock in Canterlot he took a moment looking at all the ponies. Pegasi were flying and using ropes to dock the airship. Earth ponies were hauling away boxes of trade goods from the various port cities of the world. Here and there a Canterlot administrator was overseeing, invariably with a clipboard floating near their head. All against the backdrop of beautiful white and purple buildings. He knew a battle of wills was still being tenaciously waged over the ocean, but it seemed very far away right now.

A pegasus guard flapped closer to him.

“Professor Silver Compass?” he asked. “Your presence is requested at the palace.”

Not so far away after all. He was led into the palace again, this time the diplomacy rooms. The pegasus guard opened the door and he went in. Inside was Princess Celestia, who seemed to fill up the room. She nearly touched the ceiling, along with her flowing mane and general presence of magical power the room seemed very small.

“Your Majesty,” he bowed, taking care not to slip this time.

“So, my little pony,” Celestia started, “I received a message that your visit was successful.”

“Yes, your Majesty. I learned much and was able to offer them useful knowledge. Was that why you wanted me to go?”

“Ah, there are so many opinions on why I wanted you to go. Queen Odilla is convinced it is a foolish attempt at impartiality. Our nobles are convinced I am courting a new political ally in a tense region. The humans are convinced I did it to obtain this.”

Celestia levitated a book up so that he could see. It was a thick book, with a Griffonian title. It was in the human style he had seen often enough: no hard cover, just a differently coloured set of outer pages. The title was not very clear, and he assumed it was on some subject he was not familiar with: “Atomic Theory: An Introduction”

“The key to a subtler understanding of the nature of matter, or so they promise. Such wonderful things as permanent transmutation, how their sun shines, and energy enough to drive vast industries. Or power enough to lay waste to continents.”

“They gave you that for helping to arrange a conference?”

“Indeed. A deal too good to say no to, certainly. Use a little political influence in return for incredibly valuable knowledge. Of course, they did neglect to mention that such books are available in any bookshop in their Griffonian Democratic Republic, but such little deceptions are the heart of diplomacy. Likewise, we did not see fit to inform that we knew they were selling knowledge they could not hope to keep secret. Away from such difficult questions as why, how did they receive you?”

“Very well, your Majesty. They were hospitable and generous with their knowledge. It,” Silver Compass tensed at this point but he had promised the humans, “seems a shame that there can not be more interaction between our academic communities. It could only be to our mutual benefit.”

“Oh, indeed. I am certain you will make a note of this when you publish what you have learned. Queen Odilla fears terrible disaster if we were to so much as greet them politely. Perhaps rightly; her throne grows weaker every year. Many of her subjects are becoming enamoured with their ‘inalienable rights as sentient beings’ and civil war looms.”

Silver Compass said nothing, but wished he had stayed out of politics. Civil war was a shadow a thousand years in the distant past, but so had been Nightmare Moon, and she certainly had not stayed in the past.

“What if I asked you to trust me, and not publish anything you have learned?” Celestia fixed him with a keen stare. “Would you?”

“No, I would not publish, your Majesty,” Silver Compass was dismayed.

“If I were to place a moratorium on all contact with them, do you think my ponies would heed me?”

“Of course, your Majesty.”

“Then I think you should publish with no fear of civil war or other such horrible things coming to pass. Be sure to include a note thanking Princess Luna for the diplomatic arrangements.”





Twilight Sparkle was sorting through her mail as she trotted back to her study. For all that it was a wonderful castle granted to her by the very magic of Equestria, it meant her postbox was a long way away from her study.

She froze as she read the cover of one journal. ‘The Wiles Proof of Starswirl’s Unsolved Theorem.’ She levitated it out of the stack and quickly paged to the article.

“Sir Andrew Wiles, “ she muttered while reading, trying to pronounce the phonetically spelled name. A very strange name, it matched no linguistic pattern she knew. To which nation did this mathematician belong? Hopefully the biography section would tell her.



The End