Author's Note

"And I say also this. I do not think the forest would be so bright, nor the water so warm, nor love so sweet, if there were no danger in the lakes."

(C. S. Lewis, Out of the Silent Planet)

Expedition

Log 11

Today is the day that the Concordat and I start really exploring.

We worked out a plan to keep kind of in touch to avoid one of us getting stranded with the blackshirt breathing down our necks. We’re both looking for signs of habitation. I want to find the person who left me food.

Speakin’ of, I’m bringing the basket with me. I figure I ought to return the thing.

This log is going to be a little different. I’m probably gonna be rambling to myself a bit, but I’ll also try to keep a running commentary going if I can find anything worth commenting on.

I’m bringing along all of the new day-rations just in case another animal starts rooting around in my stuff while I’m gone. And by animal I mean the animal kind and the human kind that wears all black and thinks the best way to greet you in the morning is an assault rifle in your mouth. Bringing the Judge and all of my ammunition. Lab module is folded up in my backpack. Both canteens are full and on the hip that doesn’t have my big iron. What else? Basket. Heh, I could wear it like a hat! Damn I miss my hat. Burned in the facility, of course. Fuckers. Um. I have the scroll in my backpack, too. Kind of like a reciept, I guess, just so I can show it if I run into someone who didn’t leave me this gift.

I’m eager. Also terrified, but mostly eager. I’m fixing to head out and find… I don’t know what I’ll find. But I think it might be something great. I mean, how bad can it be, when sorta-first contact was a fruit basket and a little handwritten note?

What do you talk to aliens about?

I suddenly realized I don’t know. I’m just sitting here, filling up the canteen when it occurs to me that I don’t know what in the sam hell I’d even discuss with an alien. The weather?

I mean, we have no shared experience beyond being alive. Breathing, I guess. If they breathe? Would they have to? I don’t know! I’m not a biologist! I deliver the mail and I shoot things sometimes and I do oddjobs. I don’t know if you can have things that don’t breathe.

For probably the hundredth time, I find myself wondering why they picked me.

I asked about that, actually. Why me? A few reasons, and all of them a little weird. Doc came to the Republic while he was hiding out in Baja. Just dropped this whole thing in their lap with a secret comminque with just enough data to prove he wasn’t bullshitting. They sent someone to talk to him, and that guy came back crazy about the idea because it worked. It actually worked. The son of a bitch could do it.

Why’d he come to the Republic? The Republic is the weakest of the factions with the cleanest history as far as atrocity goes. They’ve made mistakes, big ones, but most of their failures are honest failures and not, you know, bombing civilian populations into ash. More like, failing to keep the roads safe and failing to keep people fed. The poorest, the weakest, and arguably the most good. Arguably is the word I wanna stress there, for the record. I’m not big on the Republic, but I’ll take them over the rest in an instant.

He wanted someone who wouldn’t steal his tech, boot him out on his ass, and then use it to rule the world. And I get that. The Republic doesn’t have the resources or the manpower for conquering, and that’s exactly what he wanted out of them.

As for me? That was the next step--the first one through couldn’t be affiliated with the Republic. They balked at that… until the probes showed a world with clean air and clean water and possibly resources just waiting to be exploited. They were willing to do what he said after that. Because a clean world was a world you could grow food in, and that would mean keepin’ the wolves from the door. They were desperate. You can’t eat money or bullets.

I had no ties that were lasting or binding. No affiliatin’ with governments. I could handle myself, though I’ve done a piss poor job of it so far. And because the Doc liked me.

But I think he made a mistake. We didn’t think there would be, you know, aliens. Not really. If we had thought that, they woulda scrubbed me goin’ right away and sent someone with a bigger brain and a bigger vocabulary and maybe one of those scientists to poke at things.

What comes after you meet a new species?

Like, okay, you say hello and you do the whole “I come in peace” thing but then what?

Seeing as how I have encountered absolutely nothing in the last hour and a half, I can’t help but think about what I’m going to do if I do find something.

When I was a kid, I really liked the old scifi novels I found in the old bookstores in Shreveport. They had all kinds of ideas what the future would be like. Sometimes we went to space and we were all alone, and I thought that was sad. Sometimes, they built their space ships and they found friends… and sometimes the first thing we met out there tried to kill us. Actually, they usually ended up trying to kill us.

I never got why so many of them involved aliens coming to Earth and blowing us up. I mean, the Earth I looked around and saw wasn’t worth traveling so far just to drop a few bombs on and leave.

But more than that, why would we fight? I never understood. If you’re not gonna be friends that’s one thing, I can get that. You don’t see eye to everyone. But not liking someone doesn’t mean you shoot them. It’s a waste, for one thing, and for another that’s how raiders act. You just give each other a wide berth, and ain’t space big?

What do you talk to aliens about? That’s the question again. It sounds like a dumb question, but I think it might be an important one. Is there anything to talk about? For that matter… shit, how do I even say hello?

Three wanderers roam the dark wood, and one watches over them.

The Pioneer is stealthy, by human standards, but she cannot compete with a shaman of the Zebrahara. Zecora has been able to vanish in plain sight since she was very young. Before she was initiated in the sacred mysteries, before she had touched the staff or known a male, she had learned to track across sand and mountain alike. Her tribe held this in high regard, and her new pony friends were mostly ignorant of it.

It had been awhile. She was rusty, but the creeping of humans she found child’s play. They were a bit taller than her normal marks had been and in very unfamiliar ground.

She was pleased to see that the human had brought her basket along with it. It seemed much better today. It talked to itself in a voice that seemed cheerful, and a few times it hummed what sounded like a song as it stopped to take a drink from its strange metal canteens.

The Pioneer smiles, and Zecora does not marvel at the similarity in this expression. She has no idea that the human that lumbers through her forest is anything but native to her world. She has knowledge of the stars but not of the possibility of other realities beyond her own, her prime existence.

Far to the east, the Cartographer Malthus comes across a thinning of the trees and is the first human to see beyond the Everfree. He crests a hill and looks over the farms at the edge of Ponyville. His jaw drops and his arms go slack. Only by sliding to the ground and fumbling for his binoculars does he buy time and composure. All around him, the dread that the Pioneer felt when watched swirls up and bombards his heart and mind. But he fights it. He tries to keep it at bay, and watches the ponies at their work.

Their idyllic and rustic tasks fills him with a nostalgia for elder days, far beyond his own years, back towards a very different time. A time that he remembers through the opinions of men who profited greatly from the times, it should be said.

He ponders. Much like his namesake Christopher did, he ponders a happy people from a distance and dreams of empire.

And lastly marches the blackshirt, the man of New York, his submachine gun gripped tightly in his hands. He goes unseen even as he follows the Pioneer’s exploration, even by Zecora with the eagle eyes. She can’t be blamed--she can account for the natural. She cannot account for the artificial.

The Federal walks silently in the tight confines of an ablative field. Light bends around him. Sound does not leave past the field. In the right light, one could see him, but in the field, in an unfamiliar forest? Absolutely not.

He assumes Zecora is an animal. He remembers the others he has shot and smiles faintly. He will kill her if she keeps following the Pioneer, perhaps after his discussion.

And so, three beings walk towards a small home in the dagerous woods which are silent wherever they go. What ponies and zebras do not feel about these interlopers, the animals of the Everfree do feel, and they are afraid.

Log 11, continued

One thing I’ve noticed about this place is that no matter how similar it is, I can’t escape that this place is not home. The trees look like our trees… mostly. It’s like everything here is 70% the exact same as Earth and then right before the end it just sort of peels off to the left and then gets lost. You’ll find two or three normal trees and then one that’s all crazy angles. Or a bunch of normal flowers and then… these. For the catalogue, it’s a blue flower that seems to glow faintly. It’s impossible huge for the size of the stalk, but… it’s pretty. I think I’m going to save a few. I’ve got one going in the module now, and I’ve stopped to let it work.

Checked in with Malthus about twenty minutes ago. He thinks he’s getting close to the edge. Told him I feel like I’m just getting deeper. He hasn’t seen anything animal-wise beyond birds, so that’s strange. We wondered if that was just the weirdness of us being aliens here or if that was an indicator of a serious difference between worlds. Not sure what to think. I’m not a scientist, you know?

Any moment now he’ll be out of the forest. I wonder what he’ll see? Will there be a village out there? Roads? Towns?

I still keep trying to imagine what they’ll look like. He’ll probably find them first, but I can still imagine, right? I’m goin’ to regardless so whatever.

But enough of that. I’ve found a path.

It’s obviously manmade, or alienmade. I see signs of maintenance here, where someone’s cut away the brush and kept it back. It ain’t seen heavy traffic, I don’t think. But there are marks here and there where I know something has walked. Not footprints so much as divots, maybe some animals mostly. Or maybe just an alien with weird feet.

I’m going to follow it. Before, I wasn’t ready to meet anyone on the road, but now I am. I want to meet them. I’m ready--or, well, no. I ain’t really ready at all but I wanna be, and I can try to be, and that’s just gonna have to be enough.

The Inflitrator, the Conqueror who is not seen, watches and licks his dry lips.

He sees through cameras, of course, for no light reaches him directly.The field is all but skintight, but right above the field there is a plurality of cameras, and like the Pioneer he has augments and implants. So in a way he has never seen her with his own eyes and he wonders if there will be a difference between this sight and the other.

It will have to happen perfectly. The situation is volatile, and surprisingly, the Infiltrator knows himself well. He knows that volatile situations are both his favorite sort and also where he loses himself. He is a violent man, let that be clear. He chose the SMG not because he needed the firepower but because he enjoys how bodies dance as he rips them asunder in a hail of bullets. Before he dipped his hands in blood for god and country he did it for credit chips in New York and before he did that he roughed up kids in the worst parts of the city who were too close to the Family’s territory in the Bronx for free.

If she fires she will miss--he knows this very well, and if she does not miss it will not matter. She has clothes and he has armor. Her bullets might punch through but they might not. His will definitely pierce her.

But he does not want her to fire. He would enjoy it if she did. But it would be a waste.

He needs her to listen.

He also needs her to handle a situation for him.

The Infiltrator grinds his teeth. He is not patient. He has never been patient. His masters are the patient ones, the ones who invested in the blackshirts when they were all but illegal, universally hated, decried as racists and fascists and hatemongers. They were the ones who built empires over cigars and bourbon. Frank Costello is the one who shoots and punches and sets buildings aflame when the money doesn’t flow like it should.

His work with the Federal Special Operations Division is not much different than working for the Family, honestly.

He needs her first reaction to not be putting a bullet through his head. Does she hate him because of who he works for? Absolutely! Doesn’t matter. He hates lots of people. In fact, if the Infiltrator is honest, he hates most of them. But he knows when to make a deal and when not to take the shot. He thinks she does to.

So the Inflitrator plans to take the initiative. He pulls his gun up and then counts to five. On five he will drop the stealth field through his implants and then call out to her.

On four, she stops and says aloud--I’ll be damned.

He pauses.

She just… stares. Curious, and a bit apprehensive, he moves up.

Before them both now is a strange sight. Were either of them younger, they would have thought of a once famous movie, but both are children of a far more broken world. As it is, they see a hovel built into a tree, decorated with paint and strange patterns.

The Infiltrator is surprised and forgets that he has lost track of the animal that had been trailing the Pioneer.

He knew that something was here of course--he has seen the castle ruins.

But now he begins to put the pieces together. They’re behind us, he thinks. He knows now: he’ll not find any technology even remotely close to what he’s used to. Hell, he won’t find anything close to what his father knew. These people are savages.

He grins like a madman for he is one, in his own way. He pictures zulus being mowed down by British machineguns.

Think of the possibilities. Only now is his mind clear. Think what only a few dozen could do!

And so he backs up and watches from afar as the Pioneer approaches.

The Pioneer swallows. Her knees are weak and each step feels like it may yet be her last.

The feeling from the long surveilance is back again, though it is not so bad as before. She feels watched, weighed, judged, weak. So weak. So small. Everything smells and feels and looks wrong again where it had not before. Her right hand itches for the Judge but she will not touch it. She draws a deep breath… lets it go. Another. Again. Again.

Stay calm, she whispers to herself. Just don’t lose it.

It has occured to her that this might be some sort of intentional attack. She’s read enough old science fiction by candle light in enough half-destroyed motels to think of psionic aliens. Perhaps this instant unease, this unnerving fear, is her body’s natural defense to an alien trying to assume control?

It makes more sense than she is comfortable with. The hut, the castle… all traps. Luring her in with harmless things that wouldn’t frighten but would in fact entice her. Ruins are fascinating. Perhaps it knew this. If they could read her mind… if they rooted around in it, they could have known she had always wanted to be an archaeologist as a little girl, like the man in the poster at the old Shreveport cinema. Her father had laughed and said he would explain why sometime, but he forgot because Shreveport burned. It could have seen that and with its vast resoirvoirs of power made her see these things like a dream.

No, no illusions. Malthus had seen them too.

Of course…

No. She took a few more steps.

It could have built them, if it had technology powerful enough, the little voice insisted. This is a trap. If you go in there…

She would knock first, of course, said another voice with an absurd surety.

The Pioneer crossed into the clearing and was only fifteen yards from the door when it opened and the strange creature from the night before exited. Her cloak was gone now. She was naked--Zecora did not see a need to hide now that the strange giant had found its way to her home (as she had of course hoped it might) but her pleasantries went out the window. The poor idiot had frolicked in poison joke. She had run ahead soon after that, oblivious to the one who watched her, and prepared the cure. After the incident with Twilight and her friends, Zecora had made the cure into a poultice that took immediate effect.

She expects some puzzlement from the creature, but sees that it is simply blinking in utter confusion. She speaks to it in the common tongue, knowing that many of the higher animals and all of the Speaking Tribes know the common tongue.

She has no idea why the giant loses its footing and sinks to its knees, babbling in its guttaral gibberish. Surprise she would understand, for it seemed to be alone and she was a Zebra, after all, and an alien in these lands. But it does not see surprise so much as horror, and this stops her short.

She wracks her mind for any reason her very visage might inspire the feelings she sees. All of the myths, all of the old legends and the lore of the twelve tribes and the scattered fragments of the lost brothers… the creature is babbling again, its voice tight with panic. She speaks to it again, trying to soothe it. She apologizes for startling it, knowing that it had no reason to be truly startled, and it only seems to grow more terrified. It scoots away and hugs its long arms around itself, talking faster and faster. It’s words seem… angry? But not at Zecora, who it will not look at directly for more than a second or two.

Zecora swallows.

Now she, too, is lost. She wished to help the giant, for it obviously had no idea where it had found itself… yet now she was overcome with dread. Why would such a thing fear her? It was not right. No beast or pony had ever reacted to her this way once it knew what she was and had spoken to her--yes, the ponies of Ponyville had feared the hooded mare who came down for market, but when they had spoken to her, Zecora had found friends. It had been a misunderstanding.

She was used to this reaction from misunderstanding, not from revelation.

She tries again. Stranger, please, I do not wish you any harm… I see you have brought me back my basket, she notes, and smiles her best smile.

The creature bursts into tears.

She blinks at it. She had once thought that Apple Bloom was hard to keep track of, but this stranger…

She groans. Obviously, it didn’t know the common tongue. It would assume she was angry or thought it assumed her a thief! Perhaps that was it. But the eyes… they did not seem like that of a falsely accused. They looked like a pony who had stared into Tartarus and found it staring back.

She waved and the Stranger stared at her. It seemed to be difficult to do. Zecora pantomimed sitting, and then sat and then pointed to the Stranger than to the ground. Stay. Sit.

She pointed to herself, and then to the house. I will go inside. Then she pointed to herself and then tried her best to pantomime coming back out of the house with her hoof playing the Zebra’s part. Then, she gave up, and walked back inside calmly. She does not see the shaking, terrified human who has realized her own near-sin sit and wait for a judgement that will not come.

As soon as she was out of sight and free from propriety’s hold, she rifles through everything for the scroll she had set aside.

She examines the markings again and winces. Yes, it was a difficult matrix for sure. It would take her awhile to draw it properly, but… she didn’t have that long. She needed to calm this poor creature down. If it could speak, she must tell it of the flower it had touched and also that it must be more careful in these woods.

So she rushed the job, finding a spare blank talisman she had carved the night before for just this purpose. The best laid plans of mice and Zebras, indeed, she would have thought had it been a proverb she knew, and she rushed the job.

A few minutes later she returned with the talisman on a necklace string in her mouth. The human shivered, still looking shellshocked (she did not know this word but the Pioneer did) and Zecora walked towards her. The Stranger scooted back. Sighing, Zecora laid the little amulet in the dirt and walked back towards her house. She sat by the door and gestured at the talisman, and then to the Stranger. Rise, take and wear it.

The Pioneer felt like she was dying.

As soon as the alien--oh GOD this was it she had… she had almost--put the wooden necklace talisman down she had felt it radiating a cold heat all over her body. She felt sick. Was this what standing in a nuclear plant in the old world was like as it melted down? Her body was coming apart at the seams. She tried to look at her hands but the migraine that was beginning distracted her.

Yet no blood spewed forth and nothing seemed to change on the outside.

Her fear was almost maddening and she knew it was irrational. The creature--the alien horse the ALIEN OH CHRIST SHE HAD ALMOST EATEN IT--watched her and even though she knew intellectually it was not acting in a threatening manner she still saw it through a sinister lens.

What the hell was this? Was it doing this? Was it not meaning to do this?

She looked at the gift in the dirt and tried to swallow and coughed instead.

Fuck.

She crawled forwards, trying not to look at the horse zebra alien whatever the fuck it was and she grabbed the thing in her hand.

It was FREEZING.

She yelped, jumped back, and rubbed her hand. She looked up. The Zebra seemed confused. It tilted its head.

The Pioneer tried again, not wanting to make the alien mad. You know, she told herself, the one you almost murdered and turned into fuckin’ jerky you sick fuck. She reached out and touched the talisman. It was so cold, but it did not hurt her hand beyond the unpleasant sensation. She brought it back and held it to her chest and the cold spread everywhere, and she feared… but saw that her flesh did not seem to be hurt. She slipped it on. If this was how it wished to render judgement maybe she deserved it when you started eating people they shot you in front of everyone and everyone saw you get the shakes and maybe--