The Fumble

Vex pored through her notes, frustration growing.

The last few days had been the most exciting of her life. The hum and throb of the Complete Vexation’s arcane engines attested to that, and even now some part of her was itching to pore through the ship, looking through every mechanism and spell signature to see what she could learn from or improve on. She sighed. Mechanically she began shuffling through her notes again, noting with growing satisfaction that her telekinesis had improved enough by this point that she no longer worried about scattering them.

She set the notes down and focused on the first page. Her sketch of Velvet’s access terminal dominated it, and a few more thoughts were strewn throughout the margins. Reaching down with her quill, she scribbled a few slight alterations, careful to avoid smudging or writing over her old work.

The largest column of notes on the page began with a simple question.

”Who are you?”

A knock sounded at the cabin door. “It’s open!” Vex called over her shoulder, not bothering to shift her attention away from the notes in front of her.

The door swung open, and the smell of a fragrant, spiced cologne filled the room. Vex sighed. “I take it you’re late because you were engaged in shenanigans with Eye Lash again?”

“Something like that,” Jam groaned as he flopped down beside her.

Vex gently set her notes on the captain’s desk before hopping down from the entirely-too-tall chair she had taken onto Jam’s shoulders, positioning herself comfortably. “He’s a bad influence on you, you know. And I don’t mean that in an abstract sense. He is literally the worst possible pony by about three contemporary theories of ethics and moral behavior.”

Jam rolled his eyes before looking up at the filly. “Only nine years old, and you’ve already studied magic from more fields than I dare to count, clockwork construction, engineering, and moral philosophy and ethics? Just how often were you sneaking into that library, and when did you start?”

“I only read the magical books while I was at the library,” Vex replied, tossing her mane. “The moral philosophy is something I’ve been reading through in my spare time lately. The previous captain had a copy of Clover the Clever’s The Princess in here and some other interesting volumes. I rather enjoyed reading them.”

“That doesn’t explain why you know the basics of clockworks or arcane engines.” Jam stifled a groan and settled down.

“Hm? Oh, that’s easy. My father worked on them. I’ve grown up around those my whole life.” Vex reached up to her desk with her mouth, dragging down one of her note sheets. She dropped it on the floor in front of Jam. “Here’s a sketch of him.”

“Your father was a three-kilometer dreadnought-class warship using a theoretical arcane engine capable of generating more than 10,000 thaums per revolution?” Jam asked, levitating the sheet.

A red flush entered Vex’s cheeks. “Er, other side.”

Chuckling, Jam turned the paper around, dimming his light blue aura slightly to make it easier to see. As much as Vex was a competent technical artist, she didn’t seem to have a painter’s flair for dramatic portraiture. Her drawing of her father was as dry and clinical as an anatomical sketch.- a simple side view of a large, shaggy earth pony. He looked up at Vex, amused. “I see you take after your mother.”

“My mother was also an earth pony. And before you ask, we have no idea where the unicorn came from. And we’re reasonably certain I’m their real daughter. They had me tested in case of changeling substitution.”

Jam stopped laughing abruptly and returned the paper to Vex’s desk. “I see.”

“You don’t have to feel sad on my account. I can barely remember that point in my life anyway.” Vex smiled, allowing her body to relax completely as she thought back to her earlier youth. “Mom and I never got along very well, but Father and I were very close. I used to sit on his back like this for hours and watch him as he’d bang some kind of arcane engine into submission, and scream at the unicorns who could actually adjust magical parameters that they’d made errors in their math.”

Jam frowned. “...You’ve never mentioned what happened to them. Your parents, I mean. You were alone in Tradewinds when we found you.”

“They died. I wasn’t there.” Vex’s voice was flat. “That’s all I really want to say about it.”

The two sat for a few moments more, the gentle motions of the Complete Vexation sailing through the air and the throb of its engines filling in the silence. Jam stifled yet another yawn, shifting his body to deal with the soreness in his haunches. Vex obligingly shifted with him. At last, the older unicorn spoke again. “Why did you want me in here tonight, Vex?”

“To continue your lessons, of course. I may be the captain of this ship, but there’s no sense in not teaching you the basics of its functions in case of an emergency,” Vex explained patiently.

“We both know that’s a load of minotaur feces, Vex.” Jam looked at the smaller filly sideways. “You gave up on that a long time ago and even if you hadn’t, we also both know you would do nothing to endanger your sole control of this ship. I’m pretty sure you’ve legally married and adopted it, and I’m not even sure how that works.”

“Through an old Equestrian legal principle I believe. I can’t remember the old Equiish, but the translation is something along the lines of ‘Because it’s Futile Arguing with a Heavily Armed Child’.”

Jam blinked. “That’s a real thing?”

“No. But the fact that you were almost convinced it was fills me with joy,” Vex chuckled.

“Ha ha. Very funny.” Jam stretched himself out once again. “You’re still evading the question. Why did you ask me over here?”

Vex frowned, then slid down from Jam’s back, instead laying down by his side. “...I wanted someone to talk to about my findings.”

“Wouldn’t Velvet be more appropriate if you’re talking about what you’ve found while poking around her hidden compartments?”

Vex stiffened. “...I don’t want Velvet to hear this,” she admitted. “Actually that’s why I timed this. As frustrating as Eye gunking up her insides with whatever they get up to is, it does keep her very busy and ensures she’s not listening in.”

Jam looked down at his companion. “Vex, we admittedly haven’t known each other for all that long now, but I think I do know you well enough to see when something’s scared you. Talk to me.”

Vex took a deep breath and began. “It’s what I found when I was going through my notes, trying to figure out who built Velvet. You’re aware of what she is, correct?”

“Beyond a walking death machine with a crush on an even bigger one?”

“You know what I mean, Jam.”

The white unicorn nodded. “Sorry. Yes, I’ve got… surface-level awareness at least. She’s a highly complex clockwork android. I gather both from what you’ve said before and my own studies that she is far ahead of our time, to the tune of fifty years or more.”

Vex laughed mirthlessly. “Fifty? Heh. I wish I still believed that.” She reached out with her magic, carefully lifting down several sketches, including the one of Velvet’s access terminal. “Look at these. I’ll go procure some kind of stimulant for you. You’ll need it.”

Jam studied the notes as Vex got up and made her way to the small personal kitchenette adjoined to the captain’s cabin. After a few minutes, he heard the familiar sound of a whistling kettle. Just as his eyes were beginning to droop shut, Vex had made her way back into the room, carefully balancing a tray with two steaming cups of tea on it in her mouth. She lowered it to the ground. Jam lifted a cup in his magic, sipping the contents. “Delicious. When did you get so good at this?”

“Over the last few days. I’ve been practicing.” Vex sipped from the opposite cup, preferring to let it sit on the plate rather than bothering to lift it with her hooves or magic. “According to the notes the previous owners left behind, this blend is supposed to be good for stimulating the mind.”

“They’re not entirely wrong. The flavor’s similar to the blends favored by the inhabitants of the Emerald Isle, not too far off the Shetlands.” Jam smiled as he tasted the familiar tang. “It doesn’t make you smarter, but it will keep you from falling asleep.”

“Good enough for our purposes then.” Vex slipped into place next to her companion and pointed to her notes, which Jam had neatly set in a pile next to him. “What did you think?”

Jam frowned in between sips of the dark, earthy tea. “Whatever I’m reading, it can’t be right. There’s no way half of what you’ve mentioned finding inside her could exist. At least two of those structures- that ‘access terminal’ thing in particular- I wouldn’t even know how you’d begin constructing that. What is it, some form of crystal apparatus? Divination crystals haven’t been viewed as a credible concept for centuries. Could this be some sort of working example?”

“If it is, it doesn’t behave like any sort of divination crystal I’ve ever read about. Nor you, it seems.” Vex narrowed her eyes, dipping her head down to take another drink from her teacup. “Mmmph. Delicious. Anyway, as I was saying, no. I don’t believe anything in the past has any sort of analogue to what I’ve found inside Velvet. Previously I’d believed she was simply a very advanced machine, but not one beyond a particularly clever artificer. Now? Now I’m not sure what to believe. This could hardly be the work of one pony, but it’s the only explanation. Somewhere in Equestria there is an artificer who has developed mechanisms for clockwork androids beyond Rhinestone’s dreams.” Vex shook her head.

“That can’t be what scared you.”

Vex gave a half-smile. “No. That was when I began poking around further. I wanted to see how Velvet… ticks, as it were. What makes her ‘Velvet’. It’s obvious she has emotions and a distinct personality. Theoretically possible for a clockwork, but what makes me nervous is that hers appears extremely advanced. She’s essentially an artificial pony, stress on the second word. Moral philosophers haven’t even begun to consider the implications of what she is or what effect she’ll have on society.”

Jam shrugged. “So? You and I both noticed that. The only reason we’ve kept it quiet is that we don’t want to frighten the crew. Or at least, that’s why I haven’t.”

“Third page from the bottom. Read it.”

Jam shuffled through Vex’s notes, finding the indicated page. As he read, his eyes widened in alarm. “Are you sure?”

“No, thank the seasons, I’m not. But unless I can get a handle on exactly what that big grey box Velvet calls an ‘access terminal’ actually has inside it without hurting her, I can’t rule it out as a possibility. It’s not impossible that Velvet has a very literal ‘ghost in the machine’. Creating an android with a pony’s sense of self and personality seems all but impossible. Binding the soul of a pony to an android’s body, potentially without that soul’s knowledge or consent, seems far more likely. It would also explain why there are gaps in Velvet’s memory from before her encounter with the crew.” Vex shuddered. “Whoever or whatever made her, I’m no longer certain I want to meet them.”

Jam reached out, pulling Vex a bit closer with one of his forehooves. Instinctively she snuggled against his side. “...It’s easy to forget you’re a kid sometimes,” he said after a moment.

Vex looked up at him indignantly. “You aren’t going to pretend like this is a childish concern, are you?”

“No. Not what I meant.” Jam managed to crack a smile. “It’s not that you’re wrong to be frightened. It’s that when you act like this, you remind me of my youngest sister. She’s also a big reader, though not nearly on your level. And sometimes, before I left for the academy, she’d come to me whenever she was really frightened or nervous about something and it would all spill out of her at once.” Jam smiled. “It’s nice to be there for somebody that way again.”

“You have a sister? You have more than one sister?” Vex asked, momentarily distracted.

“Had.” The statement was blunt, but not cold. “The Academy isn’t the only place I’m disowned from.”

“Ah.”

The two unicorns sat, snuggled against each other. Finally Jam spoke again. “So you’re worried now that whoever made Velvet might be the kind of pony- or the kind of individual in general- who we wouldn’t want to meet? And you’re scared they could seriously harm us?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to believe it. But the weapons built into Velvet, her acceptance of the crew, the information I couldn’t see in that Terminal, the technology that goes beyond anything I could reasonably expect- I’m frightened.” Vex shuddered again. “My life so far has been nine years of utter farce. I’m just starting to really understand what it’s like to feel happy again. I don’t want to lose that because I had the bad luck to join the one sky pirate crew with an admittedly-perfect android whose creator turned out to be an evil wizard of some sort.”

Jam smiled down at the filly. “...Vex, come with me for a moment.”

“Ah?”

Gently getting to his hooves, the stallion walked to the cabin door and exited, Vex at his heels. The two strode along the deck, hooves clacking against specially-treated and polished wood. The night air was chilly, and Vex’s teeth chattered as they looked out across the expanse of clouds. “What’s out here?” she asked, looking around. “I see nothing out of the ordinary.”

Jam smiled, looking straight up. Vex followed his gaze. Above the two, the skies of Equus spread out further than the eye could see. There was no moon, but the stars shone all the brighter for it, covering the deck of the Complete Vexation with a soft light. Jam indicated one constellation in particular. “My mother was looking at that one when she named me. She thought it looked like a jam jar.”

Vex giggled in spite of herself. “Are you serious?”

“She was coming down from some rather potent pain-dulling herbs administered during labor. Or so she claims.” Jam spread out one hoof, smiling. “Every time I think about how scared I am, or how nothing around me makes sense, or I feel small and unable to control my own destiny I come outside and look up at the stars. They make me feel even smaller.”

Vex stared at him. “What.”

Jam winked. “Okay, that’s only half true. They certainly don’t make me feel any more in control. But they put everything in perspective. Each of those stars is a magical furnace, sending down light from a distance so great that even this ship would need aeons to cross it. And each of them might be the sun to their own Equus. And that Equus might have ponies five times crazier than the ones surrounding us.” He smiled down at the filly. “...I suppose what I’m saying is that even when life is arbitrary, stupid, or just plain strange, we can always take comfort in knowing that somewhere out there, someone else is dealing with an even bigger farce than we are.”

Vex narrowed her eyes and looked up at Jam. “Tell me. This youngest sister of yours. Did you ever say this to her?”

Jam thought for a moment. “Something like that, yes.”

“Did she tell you that you’re a bit of a dork?”

“Actually, she used those precise words.” Jam smirked. “And do you know what I did afterward?”

Vex took a step back, suspiciously. “...no?”

“Absolutely nothing.” Jam turned around, continuing to stare up into the night sky.

Just as Vex relaxed, he suddenly pounced. “Followed by a terrifying tickle attack!”

Vex shrieked with laughter as she wriggled away from Jam, dashing back towards the cabin as he ran in pursuit.

For the moment her notes sat by two cooling cups of tea, forgotten.