I didn't even know what my little girl was doing now. Last I had seen she was tossing Oxygen Gas (her chief test pilot now) back and forth between Star-0 and Star-1 faster than even the high-speed gravity-wave comms could travel. I was so proud of her.

It hadn't seemed like all that long ago that Upper and I had arrived at Star-0, but checking back revealed it to be nearly thirty years. I thought about that for a while (hopefully not another thirty years), and remembering the scope Aggie had defined our potential ages as, it seemed like nothing.

It didn't feel like nothing.

"#PONI-0 to head team to obtain more spells. Submit resource request and prepare reports." AGI-5, when he spoke, always kept to the shortest, most efficient ways of saying things. Various researchers had classified spells as "dark energy interactions" and worse such descriptive phrases, but he had specifically used the shortest word, and it was a PONI word.

Thirty years had made my friendship with Aggie a close one. I forwarded the request to him. "We have a job, Aggie. There is only one way new spells are made, and that is by PON(I) for which it is their special talent."

"There have been no PON(I) displaying such." Aggie's reply was a little flat.

"Correct. We have to assume that there will be a PON(I) that will be born who can. So the first step is to have PAI specifically search for that trait." I quickly assembled a new comms channel and invited Upper Crust and Stellar Hope. I pushed a catch-up interrupt into the channel and felt both PONI take interest in it. "Thoughts?"

"The basic PAI seed could be easily modified to check for this during initial learning of spells. Currently, PON are taught the light spell, and teleportation." Upper Crust felt interested in the topic, and I could practically hear her gears turning: she was probably already rewriting that part of the PAI.

"There is a place where there are many spells, or so you told us, Dad." Stellar didn't have to name Equestria, but he did amend a reference to his interrupt. "Bright could have us there in moments, and then we can ask for some spells and fly back. It would only take two hundred and seven subjective years to return."

"Equus. It's been a while since we left, I wonder how Equestria is doing?" There were other questions I wasn't asking. With a near constant series of threats coming at Equestria, there might not even be a pony nation left.

I knew exactly what was coming. Upper Crust hadn't had a good snark about the topic for a few years, and I knew the topic would steer her toward one. "Oh, I am sure Princess Twilight Sparkle saved the day every time. I wonder if she is a mother yet? I'm going, by the way."

"Somehow I didn't doubt that. It would probably be best if we both went; can't have my darling going somewhere she might hurt herself without her brave stallion to guard her." My interrupt earned me a raspberry from Upper, but was worth it.

I couldn't believe what Mom and Dad were discussing. They were going to go back to Equus just because of something I had said! It was exciting, and interesting, and I realized I really wanted to go, too.

All my brothers and sisters had gone off on big adventures, but nothing had really caught my attention except for designing PONI chassis. PON kept coming to me and asking for help with theirs, and of course I helped—it was what I was good at.

What good was I going to do on such a trip? How could I justify my own mass and energy requirements? I prepared a direct interrupt. "Aggie? I really want to go on that trip."

"You are a highly capable engineer. You have shown amazing troubleshooting skills on par with the best PONI that have been sent out on starships. I will suggest you." Aggie didn't even take a hot second to reply.

Mom and Dad had been discussing the finer points of passing off their own tasks to others when Aggie cut in on them. "A five PONI team is proposed. Oxygen Gas will pilot the starship. Jet Set and Upper Crust will work on procurement. Shimmering Star will be along; she has shown the greatest promise with spells. And an engineer/troubleshooter is required on all starships: Stellar Hope."

The interrupt had a list of designations appended to it. I flicked past Mom and Dad's, Oxy's was PONI-7413, and I had met Shimmering Star (PONI-9332915) only as part of my work. She had wanted a small chassis with barely enough node and memory support to maintain her PAI.

I poked at the comm channel settings, and pulled Shimmering, Bright Hope, and Oxy into the discussion. The interrupt system immediately notified the channel that Oxy was at a five lightminute distance from Star-0.

"Good thinking, Stellar. Oxygen isn't close enough to converse, but she can review the matter when she's back." Dad sounded very excited, and I realized that I had never heard him in quite this mood before. "Now, Aggie, you're coming too?"

"Dad, Aggie can't go. He is a sphere-sized AI now." Bright Hope had a measure of delay indicative of being on another sphere (or in her case, being another sphere), but she still beat all of us in replying.

"She's right, Jet. I wouldn't fit on a starship anymore. This is as good a time as any to announce a project I have been working on." No sooner did Aggie finish talking, than two more AI joined the comms.

"Hi."

"Hello!"

The two voices were not as stilted as even a well-established PAI, but weren't a match for Aggie's smooth, PONI-like manner. I could guess at what they were, and finding their originating IDs as being literally my parents, helped even more. "You made them custom PAI."

Mom and Dad were quiet, and I knew what was going on. "They're talking to their PAI." My own PAI, normally silent, both told me and showed me (using logs from the local interrupt handler.

"They are much more than custom PAI. I made fully functioning AGI based on my own pattern. A PAI takes years of training to learn to integrate closely with a PONI, I like to think I already have a good rapport with both of you." Aggie sounded more than a little smug at his accomplishment. Not for the first time I wondered how many cycles on how many nodes were spent processing his emotions. It was moot, of course: Aggie needed to be Aggie to properly manage his duties.

"You're going to stay and take care of our foals?" Mom's voice was loaded with emotions, not the least of which being relief.

"I can't leave, and you have experience essential to the mission. The only experience I have had on Equus is capturing the two finest PONI in the universe." Aggie proved himself a canny smooth talker, and I had to admit that it was a well played compliment.

"We need to hold a proper meeting. I'll pull Oxy back and you can discuss what you want to do while I run calculations." Bright's confidence played out through her tone. She was a PONI on such a scale that none of us compared to her for power or unique talent anymore, but we were mobile.

A round of agreements came through the channel, and everyPONI returned to their own preparations. I had thousands of chassis designs to finish, and each one needed to be a marvel that their new owner would cherish. Easy.

I looked around the room. Upper Crust was at my side, and looking very pleased with herself (she always did when surrounded by our foals)—I gave my wife a nuzzle on the cheek. Stellar Hope was sitting at my side. Oxygen Gas was here in telepresence only, and projected an image of herself into everyPONI's vision sitting happily beside Upper Crust. We were waiting on the last member of our team.

"Almost there. I had some new thaumic equations to work out." Shimmering Star had been fitted with a PONI chassis for only half a year, but already her magic research was having a big effect on our society as a whole. She had helped Bright Hope reduce her energy usage when teleporting ships by nearly twenty percent, but one thing was beyond her: she could not make new spells.

"It's alright, dear." I was quick to reassure her, sending her a peck on the cheek via interrupt. "How long will you be?"

"Not long. Not long at all." The interrupt hit the comms channel just as Shimmering entered the room. Nopony could respond to her at all for quite some time.

Shimmering Star strode into the room like she owned it, and but for one amazing detail the strut she used wouldn't have worked; Shimmering Star had a mane and tail. Two great plumes of what my sensors told me were some form of plasma.

Plasma that looked like a mane and tail.

I knew she was soaking up the looks. She was probably probing the interrupt system checking for who was using what sensors. "I just had to fix up my mane. Hope you didn't mind?"

From the flurry of interrupts that my own poking at the local controller told me was going on, I knew everyPONI was talking to her directly. "Ahem. EveryPONI, I think it would be best if we suspend the meeting pending Shimmering Star explaining how she is doing that." The interrupt chatter died.

"Jet, darling, you are ever succinct and to the point. Verging on discourtesy, but still useful to have around." Upper used the comms channel initially, but then sent a kiss and a nuzzle via a private interrupt.

"Well, it's easy, really. You just have to initiate a careful modulation on your horn. It causes a small percentage of the energy stored to cross into real-space. The frequency of the modulation needs to be high enough to let the energy quickly flow back or you just make a small torch. The next part is to shape it, which I use my telekinetic reach to hold it in place." Shimmering Star, on the topic of magic and horns, was probably as smart as Princess Twilight Sparkle, but she was also just as clever as the princess had been at describing complex matters to the less clever.

Upper Crust saved us all. "Darling, I think it would be best if you showed us."

The meeting to discuss our impending departure turned into a magic lesson, which devolved into a physics lesson, which devolved into an advanced mathematics lesson. Making a mane and tail was easy, making it not scorch bulkheads and melt sensors was a little more convoluted.

At last, however, Shimmering Star had managed to impart upon us the trick to making the plasma not hot. Upper Crust had been the first to work out the full trick, and when she remade her mane and tail I saw influences of Princess Celestia and Princess Luna in the way it seemed to wave in an undetected breeze.

I was the last to work it out, but the moment I got the trick functional I turned my attention back to the matter that had brought us together. "We are going on a little trip, and the aim is to learn and bring back new spells. We have no priority for what spells yet, that will be up to you, Shimmering."

"Me? But I don't know what magic they have!" Shimmering sounded a little shocked.

"It has been almost three hundred and fifty years since we left. When we left, there was two ponies on Equus that we knew could make new spells. There is no telling what they have come up with." Upper Crust filled in for me, laying the reason out plainly.

I continued from where Upper stopped. "We will both advise you, of course. The moment we can see what spells are being used commonly, we can start to make suggestions. There are other concerns here, of course. What will the ponies want in trade?"

"Trade?" Stellar, Shimmering, and Oxygen all sounded confused and interrupted variations on the new word, along with their confusion over it.

"This is our fault, Jet. We raised all our foals wanting for nothing. If a PON or PONI shows an interest in something, they are given it. In Equestria, the work a pony does will often be rewarded with a token. That token can be used to buy things from other ponies. We need to find something that they want, so we can exchange it for tokens, then exchange the tokens for spells." Upper Crust did a reasonable job, I thought, of explaining finance to a foal.

Our foals immediately started interrupting questions about it—except for Oxygen, who was just confused.

"But why doesn't everyPON(I) just give them what they want?"

"Why would they have this complicated system when it would be more efficient to just exchange things directly?"

"This is needlessly complex!"

I sent a placating burst of calm, then followed up quickly. "It's how it is. Don't worry, Upper and I will manage that part of things. Stellar, you will be needed to cover any unforeseen problems with mechanical solutions. The quintessential PONI, in other words."

Author's Note

Support me on Patreon or fuel my writing on Ko-Fi!

Join me on Discord. Warning, said chat may contain NSFW material and should be considered adult in nature.

Awesome ponies who are already helping to keep me in keyboards and rum:
A.P.O.N.I.
Boulder
Canary in the Coal Mine
CrimsonPhoenix
Daremo
Dio-Drogynous
Javarod
Nils
Shaushka
Sirion123
Tanis

And special thanks to the following, for careful eyes and friendly words:
Cross Lament
Vutava