Welcome, Welcome, Welcome

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.
André Gide

“I can sense him approaching, and he has great expectations.”

“He is aware of—”

“No. Is anything ready?”

“Of course, princess. I’ve relayed your orders, checked and double-checked everything. All is fine, believe me.”

“You realise we’ve no margin of error? This might be our only chance.”

”I’m fully aware of my responsibilities, princess. There won’t be any snag. Guaranteed!”

“He might be armed, though I detect no hostility in him. Just an intense curiosity. And a thrill.”

“We’ll take care of that possibility.”

“Very well then. I trust you. As always.” She smiled. “Once this is over, you can take a day off, as well as all the other faithful citizens of Ponyville.”

“Thank you, princess!” Twilight Sparkle bowed low.

“Ah. Er… Twilight? One last thing.”

“Yes princess?”

“You look gorgeous like this.”

Twilight blushed. “Thanks princess!” She bobbed, turned around and left the throne room.

“Atmosphere composition?” asked Gary.

“65% nitrogen, 33% oxygen, 1% xenon, traces of other gases,” responded the voice of the computer.

“Equatorial gravity?”

“10.2 metres per second per second at sea level. Slightly less at poles.”

The figures tallied with what had been already collected. It was a relief: the long journey he had made would not have been done in vain.

Satisfied, he glanced through one of the portholes at the planet below. Through the clouds, green expanses of land and emerald oceans were clearly visible. That wasn’t Earth, of course, but it was so close to it that he couldn’t help but feel butterflies in his stomach and a vague yearning for home. Like all the habitable planets in the galaxy, this ball of rock was a tiny island lost in the vastness of a cool, hostile, indifferent cosmos, a clump of loam orbiting a Sun-like star, where the seeds of life had run ashore and flourished. He strained his eyes to try and recognise some signs of sapient life, but so far away, nothing was visible but the largest geographic features.

Humanity had long been aware that the fourth planet of the Tau Ceti system was hosting an intelligent civilisation. Sentinels had been sent and robots deployed on the planet’s unique moon. From there, big telescopes had been trained at the main planet, images had been captured and sent back to Earth, only a dozen of light-years away. They clearly alluded to a “class C” civilisation—in its early industrial phase. But most of all, they had revealed that the dominant species was quadrupedal, and, apart from bizarre colours combinations and winged specimens, closely resembled Earth’s ponies. It was not much of a surprise: intelligence was a highly adaptable process, and had chosen to bless very strange life forms, from the oozing silicon-based rock worms of Venus to the giant fish swimming in Titan’s icy methane oceans.

Along the years, more material had been collected. Exo-sociologists had pounced on that bonanza, and many of the aspects of that foreign society had progressively transpired: it was organised as a dyarchy, under the rule of two benevolent sisters; auxiliary ‘princesses’ were crowned every now and then. The rest of the society was mainly composed of workers. No wars had been recorded, and poverty seemed to be unknown. But what had mainly engrossed the scientists was the wide use of what the computers had translated as ‘magic’. As if the brain of these ‘ponies’ had evolved out an amazing ability to control a background form of energy and channel it into whatever they desired.

Reluctantly, Gary averted his gaze from this mesmerising spectacle, and focussed his attention back on the computer. “Computer!”

“Ready.”

“Recall preloaded description of landing target. Start a broad swathe band X scan of planet and report match. Feed all images into the memory banks. Implement!”

He let the computer perform his large scale search, stood up and walked to a panel tagged ‘Q.C.D’. He grasped and turned the small handle, and the panel slid aside with a whisper, revealing a pokey recess in which several small, identical, white cubes were stored. He randomly picked up one of them, and let the panel slide back into place automatically.

He jiggled the cube in his hands for an instant: a small button was set at the center of each face. By using quantum entanglement, the counterpart device, left on Earth a dozen of light-years away, would flash at the very moment he pressed one of those button, despite the unfathomable distance parting the two devices. This was a very simple device, which allowed only for the most basic messages to be sent; yet, it was sufficient. The more complex, extensive data would follow, at their own sluggish pace.

He pressed the blue, heart-shaped button—that meant he had successfully entered orbit—then discarded the cube into the incinerator. Soon after, the voice of the computer informed him that his landing target had been identified and located with a 99.9% probability. He ordered the computer to feed the corresponding keplerian elements into the shuttle’s nav system, then left the bridge for the laboratory: before embarking on the final part of his journey, he had to get the local language stuffed into his brain. Hopefully, sophisticated machines would do that painlessly: a one-hour nap during which all the linguistic knowledge would be hypnotically drilled into his language centres; on waking up, he would be fully fluent, as if he had always been an ordinary native.

The descent was surprisingly painless: no turbulences, no jet-streams, no other violent undetected phenomena; only the jars caused by shears and convective currents in the atmospheric layers as the shuttle slanted down and down. Now Gary was relaxing, letting his runabout fly quietly through the lower troposphere, gliding past scattered clouds over the wide expanse of a dark green canopy.

At last, on the edge of that big forest, a medium-sized town appeared. As he flew over it, he could make out the individual thatched houses, well flushed along the streets, and two or three larger buildings crowned with spires which, he surmised, served an official purpose. On the outskirts, he spotted a huge, tacky construction that vaguely looked like a chintzy castle.

At this very moment, the blaring alarm of the proximity sensor went off. Gary fumbled with the switches of the dashboard, trying to silence the deafening honk when, out of the blue, a winged pony appeared right in front of him across the pane: it (for he was not sure if ‘it’ was a mare or a stallion) had a cobalt coat, a weird varicoloured mane, and its reddish pink eyes locked on him. There was a brief moment of mutual amazement as both lifeforms looked straight at each other, jaw-slacked, then the pony’s mouth moved as if it uttered words, but they couldn’t be heard through the ten centimetres of rock solid sapphire glass that made up the front window. The flyer then recessed and swooped down at an amazing speed.

Two minutes later, the shuttle began the landing procedure. Gary had selected a wide expand of flat, grassy turf as a suitable place for the touchdown. The chemical thrusters belched their hot gases, counteracting the fall of the shuttle, while he was busy hitching the various sensors to the communication hub which would send their uninterrupted flow of measures up there to the main vessel, to be in turn relayed to Earth. “Fifteen metres… Ten metres…” the voice of the nav system droned on as the ground was coming nearer. At five meters, an additional counter-thrust was applied and for the last fathoms the shuttle fell as limply as a leaf; it barely shook when its landing gear finally rested on the ground.

“Landing successful,” announced the computer.

“All nav systems off!” He unbuckled his belt, and leaned over the dashboard to look through the window. Down there a crowd of equines was slowly building up, coming from far and wide: strangely coloured ponies, some winged, some horned, like the unicorn plushie that was his comforter so many years ago. He swiveled his chair around, stood up, took hold of a QCD device, pressed its red square button, and proceeded into the narrow corridor that led to the aft rooms and from there to the airlock.

Gary paused in front of the external airlock door, and contemplated the suit that was hanging in a recess. Of course, he could breathe unknown harmful bacteria or viruses his immune system wouldn’t be prepared to handle; on the other hand, exiting from a spaceship in full suit could be interpreted as a sign of distrust or disdain.

He had to make up his mind, quickly.

He decided to take the risk.

His decision made, he checked that his miniaturised communicator was carefully tamped into his right ear (so he would be warned by the shuttle computer of any emergency condition), and scrabbled in his pockets for the portable defense field generator (one never knew what could happen). He inhaled deeply, held his breath inside his lungs for a while, as a criminal sentenced to death dragged out the last puff of his last cigarette, breathed out noisily and then flicked the green switch.

The retractable gangway began to extend itself down to the ground with a slight rattle. After a few seconds, the door slid open with a slight hiss, and a brief gentle draught as the pressures balanced themselves out. Sunlight sluiced through the doorway, bathing the airlock in a warm and pleasant illumination, accompanied by the familiar chirping of birds. He summoned his courage, and, slightly giddy, made his way to the outside platform.

Standing atop the stairs, he considered the crowd below: assorted ponies of all kinds were all looking up at him in awe: no word, no sound, just a sticky silence pockmarked by the fitful chirrup of birds. He slowly scanned the assistance, searching for some sort of official: his gaze fell on a purple coated pony, both horned and winged. He knew from his pre-flight briefings that wings and horn meant that this pony was one of the four ruling princesses—besides, she was wearing a gilded diadem. He racked his brains for her name. Twilight Sparkle, the purple one, that must be it. Around her, well parted from the rest of the mob, stood five other ponies, one of whom he recognised as the flying daredevil who had grazed his shuttle just minutes ago; another one, pink coated with a fluffy mane, was skittishly pronking around, as if it had springs nailed in its hooves.

Gary forced a smile on his lips. “Princess Sparkle,” he declaimed loudly, so as to be clearly heard below, and bowed his head in deference, “citizens of Ponyville, on behalf of all the inhabitants of Earth, hail!”

The crowd seemed to freeze for an instant, then burst into a loud buzz. After a few seconds, the voice of Twilight Sparkle rose over the din.

“Silence!”

Everypony ceased to speak at once, except the pink pronking pony who kept up squeaking “Squee! Squee! Squee!”. The princess looked askance at her: “For Celestia’s sake, quit it, Pinkie!” ‘Pinkie’ acknowledged the order and stopped cavorting.

Then Twilight Sparkle turned her head back to Gary. “Who are you?”

“My name is Gary Seven. I’ve been sent by Humanity, as we, inhabitants of the planet Earth call ourselves, to foster and establish peaceful relationship between our two civilisations. We have a lot to learn from you, and we feel we could teach you a lot in return, especially in the field of science and technology, beginning by…” He broke off and made a gesture that took in the shuttle behind him, “…interplanetary travel.”

The princess’s eyes widened. “You mean you’re coming from another planet?”

“Our own solar system is located about a…” He paused to calculate. ”…twenty of your light-years away from yours. A light-year is—”

“The enormous distance that light travels in a year. I know that. It’s fascinating!” cut Twilight Sparkle in. She hesitated, as if floundering for answers. “Did you voyage in this… vessel?”

Gary smiled. “No. This is a runabout designed for planetary exploration. The main ship is parked in orbit around your planet.”

“How do you know our language?”

“We’ve been observing you for a long time and collected a lot of information, especially your radio transmissions. It was then a snap to master your language using our hypno-learners. That’s why I know your name, too.” He paused. “But why don’t you walk up the stairs and take a quick tour of my shuttle? It’s not really adapted to quadrupedal beings, but I think you can manage. I know you’re a science addict. There are a lot of things inside that no doubt you’ll find interesting!”

Twilight Sparkle did not answer immediately. She glanced around at the neighbouring ponies. One of them, with an orange coat and a blond mane, came closer and whispered something at her ear. The princess shook her head. She answered in a subdued voice, gestured towards the pink pony who beamed, and silently ambled to the gangway, that she climbed gingerly: the steps were too narrow for her to stand firmly on. At last, she reached the platform.

“Follow me,” said Gary courteously. He walked into the airlock, and the princess went after him.

Six hours and a half later, Gary and Twilight Sparkle emerged from the shuttle. If the princess was totally worked up, he, on the contrary, was tuckered out: the princess had grilled him about all the equipment and more. He was no hard-core scientist, just an engineer, and had had to skirt around the most theoretical questions on relativity, quantum mechanism and the Alcubierre’s superluminal warp drive. To put it shortly, what was supposed to be a quick tour had transformed into a thorough interrogation.

Yielding to the princess’s desire, he had accepted to test the hypno-teacher on her; surprisingly, it had worked like a charm. By the time she had awaken from her artificially induced nap, she had demonstrated a total proficiency in reading and speaking English. This was really encouraging.

“Thank you so much!” Twilight Sparkle descended the gangway awkwardly, followed by Gary. “This was… thrilling and enthralling!”

“Think nothing of it, princess. The pleasure was all mine.” He stifled a yawn.

“You seem fatigued.”

“I’ve been up for a long time now, and had to endure the stress of the descent as well as the excitement of this day. Yeah, I guess I could use some rest.”

The place was now deserted; everypony had vanished, probably heading back to their own business, once the first amazement past. His visit belonged now, it seemed, to the princess’s exclusive remit.

“I’m afraid there is a last ordeal you must put up with tonight.” She smiled.

“And what’s that?”

“Come along. This time, I lead the way!”

They headed to the village. Gary looked back at the shuttle. With the evening sunrays brightly reflected by the metallic hull, it looked like a blazing ember, a fiery shape against the dark green backdrop of the meadow. He realised that this tiny shuttle was his only fragile link with Earth, trillions of kilometres away, and felt a lump in his throat. But he quickly dismissed his wistfulness: why should anything go awry?

They quietly walked past the first houses, neat, perfectly lined-up thatched bungalows with chirpy coloured façades and shutters, flanked by well groomed flowerbeds. The overall impression was very pleasant, until Gary noticed that the abodes were all closed and dark, as if nobody lived inside, and the thoroughfare was strangely desert. Had he landed on the verge of a ghost town? The idea unsettled him. He stopped.

“Where are all the ponies gone?”

“That’s for you to find out!” She winked at him. “Don’t worry, you’ll soon have your answers!”

They resumed walking, went on along the empty streets. As they proceeded towards the centre, the bungalows mutated into more refined, multiple storey houses. Until they finally stopped at the edge of a large square, in the middle of which stood a massive, spired building.

“We go right there,” said Twilight, pointing at the building with one of her forelegs.

They crossed the square to a small wooden stairs that led to a double door. The princess climbed up, and stopped at the threshold. “Come on! Get in!” she said to Gary who had straggled behind.

He hesitated. The princess noticed it, and smiled. “Don’t be ridiculous! That’s no trap. Guaranteed!”

Reluctantly, Gary went up and shuffled past Twilight. He pushed the right door, trode into a pitch black room. He stopped short and turned back, flummoxed. “What of it?”

At this very instant, bright lights were switched on amidst a thunderous bang as thousands of crackers exploded simultaneously. A shoal of streamers and confetti fell on him, and a loud “SURPRISE!” resounded. Gary whirled around, just in time to watch the crazy pink pony he had spotted before hopping straight to him. The rest of the room was teeming with other ponies, and, along the walls, large wooden trestle tables had been installed, loaded with crocks full of candies, enormous cakes or bunches of bottles.

“Hi!” squealed ‘Pinkie’. “My name is Pinkie Pie, and I’ve thrown this mega-ultra-super-hyper-duper party just for you! Welcome to Ponyville! Now come, I must introduce you to all my friends! Quick!”

She took hold of Gary’s right arm and pulled him towards the middle of the room. With puzzled eyes, he looked back at the princess, standing still at the threshold, beaming. She winked at him and waved a hoof, as if to wish him good luck. Then he was swallowed up by the flock of ponies gathering around him.

It was well into the wee hours, but the party was still in full swing. Gary was hardly anything even remotely human anymore: his brain was put on auto, his ears had tuned out the braying music, and his eyes were no more than two narrow chinks. He was, more accurately, a sort of zombie shambling around aimlessly in the middle of a wild crowd of motley quadrupeds.

He had talked too much, danced too much, eaten too much, drunk too much. He was feeling sick: all the cider mugs he had swilled during the evening, probably. Tottering, he asked the closest pony for the loo. The—mare or stallion? he couldn’t tell—kindly escorted him all the way to the appropriate door. What does a pony loo look like? he thought, but the question vanished into the black hole that was his brain almost as quickly as it had sprung up.

Maybe he pushed the handle too hard, maybe it was something else, but the door gave way unexpectedly under his pressure, and he fell heavily through the doorway with a big thump. “Shit!” he exclaimed as he hit the soft floor. Behind him, he heard the door hinge back closed, and a pitch darkness fell. Something next to him made a weird sound, like— He couldn’t nail it down. His brain was reeling. He felt as if he would fall asleep right here.

He heard a soft clop, and a light was turned on.

A grey, nondescript pony was standing there, looking at him with curious eyes. Glancing around, Gary saw a passageway and a row of abutted stalls. In each of them a big hole had been dug in the floor. The place reeked of urine. He belched, and barely had time to crawl shamelessly to the nearest stall before barfing.

When his stomach has emptied, he felt slightly better. He sat for a while, his back leaning against the wall, then finally stood up, and examined himself: his palms, arms and clothes were all stained with obnoxious splotches of crud. Reflexively, he rubbed his hands against his trousers, then looked around for a tap or spout, but saw none. He felt pathetic. He shuffled back to the door, opened it—

Twilight Sparkle was waiting for him right on the other side. She eyed him from top to bottom. “Are you sick?”

“I’m sorry. I think I’ll call it a night. That was too much for me. Could you be so kind as to help me back to my shuttle?”

The princess smiled. “To your shuttle? You’re kidding! I’ll put you up for the night. Obviously you need a good shower, a solid sleep, and I can get Spike wash your clothes. I’ve got plenty of free rooms, you know…”

Gary felt a bit embarrassed. “Do I look so miserable?”

Twilight Sparkle chortled. “I’m afraid you do, yes! But don’t sweat it!”

“Are you sure you want to put me up?”

“Sure thing!” To Gary’s amazement, she knelt down. “Come on! Get on my back. And don’t protest. It might be your only chance to mount a pony princess, you know!”

Gary winced, vaguely aware of a double-entendre of sorts here, but his mind had passed beyond any ability to get it. He plopped himself down astride the princess’s back. She stood up, and trotted nonchalantly towards the exit, under the amazed look of all the other attendees.

“Squee!” exclaimed Pinkie Pie as they sidled past her. “Twily has a crush!” She whistled.

Gary woke up in cold sweat. He sat in his bed, panting, scanning for—

The large bedroom around him was empty. Through the shutterless windows, eery shafts of lunar light were casting unreal, ghostly shadows on the floor. He had had a nightmare, that was all. He climbed out of the bed, naked, and padded to the window. In the sky, the moon was shining brightly, accompanied in its nightly ride by the familiar, yet alien shimmering of the stars. He strained his eyes and tried to make out some of the constellations. But he was not on Earth, and although the most distant stars had not appreciably moved, the closest ones weren’t where they were supposed to be anymore. It occurred to him that one of those stars above might well be the Sun.

That thought was like a trigger: it conjured up images of his journey, of his arrival, of this first contact, of that big revelry. He smiled. What a dandy day he had had; even in his wildest dreams, he had not anticipated such a warm welcome.

But something was nagging at the back of his mind: too warm a welcome, a little voice kept saying. Would we have done the same if someone had abruptly come out of the stars during the 20th century? Wouldn’t we have been wary at first? Have shun him?

And why was this town so desert, by the way?

What if—

His heart started to pound madly as a sudden wave of fright washed over him. He shouldn’t have accepted to sleep here. He had to go back to his shuttle. Now.

Panicked, he rushed to the door, and from there down the mighty stairs that led to the entrance hall. He was halfway through it when something flash behind him. He stopped and turned around. Twilight Sparkle stood there, watching him with a threatening look.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Her tone was husky.

“Err… To the toilet. You know, with all the cider I quaffed down, I woke up with an urgent need and—”

“No,” Twilight Sparkle cut in. “You didn’t.”

“What?… Yes!”

“No, you didn’t,” she repeated coldly.

Gary looked at the princess with popping eyes for an instant, then turned and fled towards the gates, screaming.

He never reached them.

In the early morning, a mournful procession made its way through the busy streets of Ponyville. Ahead, a couple of ponies pulled a makeshift hearse; behind it, the princess Sparkle and her retinue, heads low, dejected.

After a long walk, the cortège arrived in view of the tract of grass where the space shuttle stood. Close to it, a deep, rectangular hole had been dug in the turf, and a headstone erected. The ponies paced to the brink of the hole and stopped. Twilight Sparkle grabbed the coffin in her magic, and put it down carefully into the excavation.

Mayor Mare delivered a short speech, praising the courage and boldness of this explorer who had come from the stars to share his knowledge and extend his friendship, only to meet a fateful doom at the end of his journey.

When she was done, earth was shoveled back into the hole until it was fully levelled.

After a last goodbye, everyone dawdled off their way, reassuming their true shape to enjoy the day off Chrysalis had given to them: they would have plenty of time to assimilate human knowledge, study the ship, clone it and set out to conquer Earth.